Despite being a global leader in AI capabilities, a new report reveals that AI adoption in India is heavily concentrated in a few urban centres, highlighting a significant digital divide that needs to be addressed for widespread benefit.
India ranks among the world's most advanced AI markets, particularly in coding, data analysis, and complex reasoning, but adoption here is 3-times more concentrated in top cities than in comparable nations, OpenAI said on Wednesday citing its latest 'capability gap findings' for India.
India ranks among the top five nations globally in thinking capability usage per person (measured via reasoning tokens used by ChatGPT Plus users), with users regularly solving complex problems and interacting with AI at an advanced level.
India is one of the fastest-growing AI builder ecosystems globally, with four times growth in 'Codex users' (AI coding tool) in just two weeks after the launch of OpenAI's Codex app in Feb 2026, as well as strong rankings in both coding and data analysis usage.
That said, this capability is not evenly distributed. AI usage in India remains highly concentrated in a handful of cities, with advanced use even more unevenly spread, a release by OpenAI, said.
The top ten cities in India account for about 50 per cent of all AI users, led by Delhi NCR, which has the highest population penetration of ChatGPT in the country.
Taken together, these cities represent less than 10 per cent of the population, making AI adoption about 3-times more concentrated in India than in comparable countries like the US, UK, Brazil, and Germany.
In advanced use cases, the gap widens significantly - data analysis usage is up to 30 times higher in leading versus lagging cities, coding usage is 4-times higher, and AI developer (Codex) usage shows a 9-times gap.
"This indicates that while India has competitive AI capability, its deepest advantages are clustering in a small number of urban hubs, including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, and Chennai," the release further said.
The capability gap findings highlight that beyond the top cities, some of the most meaningful use cases are emerging in areas like education and health, reflecting the manner in which AI is already being used in day-to-day contexts.
In education and learning, eastern states are seeing particularly strong engagement. A case in point is Assam, where 22 per cent of all messages relate to education and learning, around 20 per cent higher than the national average.
Odisha, Manipur, Tripura, and Chhattisgarh show similar patterns.
In health and wellness, higher engagement is visible in regions such as Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, and Kerala.
In Jammu & Kashmir, nearly 1 in 10 messages relate to health, about 32 per cent higher than the national average.
"The next phase of India's AI journey will depend on how widely this capability spreads through democratisation (language, affordability, infrastructure) of the technology," the release said.
OpenAI Managing Director - International, Oliver Jay said that 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, Jay added.