BENGALURU: India has emerged as one of the world’s top five markets for advanced artificial intelligence use, according to OpenAI’s latest Capability Gap findings, but the company said adoption remains heavily concentrated in a small number of cities.
The report said India ranks among the top five countries globally in advanced “thinking capability” usage per person, measured through reasoning tokens used by ChatGPT Plus users. It added that Indian users are increasingly using AI for coding, data analysis and complex problem-solving.
At the same time, the findings pointed to a sharp urban divide in usage. The top 10 cities account for around 50% of all AI users in India, even though these cities represent less than 10% of the country’s population. This makes AI adoption in India about three times more concentrated than in comparable countries such as the US, UK, Brazil and Germany.
Delhi NCR has the highest population penetration of ChatGPT in the country, while other major centres of advanced use include Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi and Chennai.
“The central question now is how quickly the benefits of AI can extend beyond early adopters and leading cities to the wider population. Closing this gap will require expanding access, building skills, and enabling more meaningful use across the country, an effort shaped in large part by India’s young, fast-adopting population”, said Oliver Jay, Managing Director - International, OpenAI.
The report said India is also among the fastest-growing AI builder ecosystems globally. Usage of Codex, OpenAI’s developer-focused product, grew four times in just two weeks after the launch of the Codex app in February 2026.
Further, data analysis usage is up to 30 times higher in leading cities compared with lagging ones. Coding usage is four times higher, while AI developer usage through Codex shows a nine-fold difference.
In education and learning, eastern states including Assam, Odisha, Manipur, Tripura and Chhattisgarh are showing strong engagement. In Assam, 22% of all messages relate to education and learning, around 20% above the national average.
In health and wellness, higher engagement was seen in Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala. In Jammu & Kashmir, nearly one in ten messages relates to health, about 32% above the national average.