OpenAI says 18- to 24-year-olds account for nearly 50% of ChatGPT usag

OpenAI seems to have found product-market fit with young Indians. In a market where most technology companies struggle to capture the attention of Gen Z users, the AI lab has managed to make ChatGPT an essential tool for India’s youth—so much so that nearly half of all conversations happening on the platform come from one specific age group.

“AI adoption is moving faster than our ability to measure it – and that’s a challenge for anyone trying to make smart decisions. Signals is our way of putting real-world evidence on the table, so India’s AI debate can be grounded in facts, not hype.” — Ronnie Chatterji, OpenAI Chief Economist

The Numbers Behind the Phenomenon

The company said on Friday that users between 18 and 24 years of age account for nearly 50% of all messages sent to ChatGPT in the country. Expand that demographic to users under 30, and the figure jumps to 80% of total messages. These aren’t just casual users—India is OpenAI’s second-largest market with more than 100 million weekly active users.

The data reveals a striking pattern in how young Indians are integrating AI into their daily workflows. Unlike many markets where ChatGPT usage skews toward general curiosity queries, Indian users are treating the platform as a professional tool. The company reports that 35% of all messages relate to work tasks, compared to 30% globally.

Coding Culture Meets AI Assistance

Software development has emerged as the dominant use case. OpenAI’s coding assistant, Codex, is seeing remarkable traction in India—users engage with it three times more than the global median. Weekly usage has increased by four times since the tool received a Mac app two weeks ago. Indian users are also asking three times as many coding-related questions as the median global user.

This aligns with broader trends across the AI industry. Anthropic reported earlier this week that 45.2% of Claude’s tasks in India map to software-related use cases, suggesting the country’s developer community is rapidly adopting AI coding tools at scale.

Beyond professional tasks, the usage breakdown shows 35% of messages request guidance, 20% concern general information questions, and 20% are writing assistance requests. The pattern suggests young Indians are using ChatGPT as an all-purpose knowledge and productivity companion.

“We’ve seen tremendous enthusiasm for AI tools among developers, but India’s adoption rates are exceptional. The combination of a young, tech-savvy population and strong English proficiency has created ideal conditions for AI integration.” — Industry Analyst

Strategic Moves in a Critical Market

OpenAI has been aggressively courting the Indian market. The company offers a sub-$5 subscription tier specifically priced for the region, and last year ran promotional campaigns to spur adoption. Now, with 100 million weekly users confirmed, those investments appear to be paying dividends.

The timing coincides with a major AI Impact Summit in New Delhi this week, where OpenAI announced several strategic initiatives. The company is opening new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru this year, establishing a physical presence in India’s two largest tech hubs.

Perhaps more significantly, OpenAI has signed a major partnership with Tata Group, one of India’s largest conglomerates. The deal secures 100 megawatts of AI compute capacity and will distribute ChatGPT Enterprise through Tata’s IT services subsidiary, TCS—potentially exposing the tool to millions of enterprise users.

What This Means for the AI Landscape

The concentration of young users in India carries implications beyond market metrics. As these users develop habits and workflows around AI tools now, they’re likely to carry those patterns throughout their careers. For OpenAI, capturing this demographic early could translate to long-term customer loyalty in one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

The data also challenges assumptions about AI adoption in developing markets. While much attention has focused on enterprise deployments in North America and Europe, India’s usage patterns suggest that individual professionals and students are driving adoption organically—finding practical applications for AI without top-down mandates.

For competitors, the message is clear: India represents both an opportunity and a challenge. The market is clearly hungry for AI tools, but OpenAI has established a formidable head start with the demographic that will shape the country’s technological future.

This article was reported by the ArtificialDaily editorial team. For more information, visit TechCrunch.