What India's AI usage means for brand teams

India shows up near the top of usage tables for several AI assistants. For brand teams that sell to Indian customers, that changes where questions are being asked and in which languages.

Three implications

• Buyers in India are asking assistants, not only searching. Category and comparison prompts belong in your tracking set.
• Language matters. Google has highlighted Hindi and other Indic languages, so test prompts in the languages your customers use.
• Usage is not evenly spread. Anthropic reports that four states account for over half of India's Claude.ai use.

The practical step is the same everywhere: define your prompts, include Indian phrasing and languages, and measure across the platforms your customers use.

Adoption in India is high, and it shows up in more than one dataset

The figures above come from company statements and vendor research. An independent view comes from the Reuters Institute's 2025 Digital News Report, a survey covering 48 markets. It found that almost a fifth of its Indian sample, 18%, used chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini to access news weekly, against 3% in the UK. That is a self-reported behaviour in one topic area, so it does not translate directly into shopping. It does show a population that is comfortable asking an assistant first.

The Reuters Institute reports that these numbers are small overall but much higher among younger audiences, and that ChatGPT is the most used tool. Averaged across markets, 4% said they had accessed ChatGPT for news in the last week. The India figure is worth noting for any brand selling there: it is well above the global average.

Google's own statement on reach

Alphabet's chief executive said on the second quarter 2025 earnings call that AI Mode had more than one hundred million monthly active users in the United States and India together. The statement does not split the two countries, so it should not be read as an India-only figure. It does confirm that India is one of the two markets where Google has put AI Mode in front of a large audience.

What changes for a brand selling in India

• Language: buyers may ask in English, Hindi, another Indian language, or a mix. The tracking set should reflect the languages your customers use rather than one translated copy of English prompts.
• Geography: city and state qualifiers change which brands are named, so test prompts with the places you actually serve.
• Pricing and availability: buyers ask about rupee prices, taxes, delivery and local support. State these plainly on your pages, in text, so an assistant can quote them.
• Sources: local directories, marketplaces and regional publications may sit alongside global review sites in the sources an assistant uses.
• Devices: heavy mobile use means pages that load quickly and present key facts near the top are more likely to be read and reused.

A practical starting point

1. 1Build one prompt set in English and one in each language your customers use, written by people who speak it.
2. 2Add the top cities and states where you sell.
3. 3Run both sets on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and compare mention rates side by side.
4. 4Find the sources cited in each language and check whether they describe you accurately.
5. 5Publish or correct the pages that answer your buyers' most common questions in plain, current language.