India’s AI adoption growing at record pace, momentum tripled year-over-year: OpenAI’s Oliver Jay

New Delhi: India is witnessing unprecedented growth in AI adoption, with momentum having tripled year over year, OpenAI's Oliver Jay said on Friday.

Jay, Managing Director for International Strategy at OpenAI, said the momentum of AI adoption in India is driven by a young population eager to use frontier AI technologies.

“The momentum we see in India is incredible. We're seeing tremendous growth. The growth in India we've seen has tripled year over year. And so we're seeing a lot of that growth.

“When we think about India, we fundamentally believe that if you build for India, you can build for the world. India is really leading the adoption of the next generation. When you think about the population mix between 18 and 24 years old, that is a booming sector in India,” Jay said, speaking at CNBC-TV18's Global Leadership Summit 2025.

He highlighted how India’s developers and businesses are actively engaged in deploying AI, which has also inspired features like the study mode in ChatGPT, tailored based on Indian student usage. Jay noted OpenAI's decision to make ChatGPT Go free in India to enhance accessibility and affordability.

Jay lauded India’s engineering talent, stressing the importance of the market not only for India but for the global AI ecosystem. Jay expressed optimism about AI’s transformative potential across sectors in India and the prospects for future collaboration with Indian enterprises and policymakers.

“My takeaway from being in India for the last couple of days is the talent…The engineering talent is unparalleled… India certainly has tremendous talent, and we're very, very excited to partner with the ecosystem,” he said.

OpenAI is set to open its first India office in New Delhi later this year, underlining the swift uptake of its AI tools in a market that is ChatGPT's second-largest after the US and among its fastest-growing.