Quick answer
Indian buyers ask AI assistants in English, Hindi and mixed languages, often with a city in the question. To be visible, publish clear local information, cover the languages your customers use, keep listings accurate on Indian directories, and measure prompts by location and language rather than assuming one answer fits all.
Key takeaways
- Test prompts in the languages and cities your customers use.
- Local facts, such as service areas and pricing in rupees, need to be explicit text.
- Answers can differ by location and language, so segment your reporting.
What is different for India?
- Prompts mix English with Hindi and other languages, sometimes in Roman script.
- City and state qualifiers change which brands are named.
- Pricing in rupees, GST details and local availability are common decision points.
- Local directories, marketplaces and regional publications may be cited alongside global sources.
A practical plan
- 1Build a prompt set with English, Hindi and mixed language versions of your top questions.
- 2Add the cities and states where you actually operate.
- 3Publish pages that state service areas, prices in INR and contact details as text.
- 4Complete listings on the Indian directories and marketplaces relevant to your category.
- 5Measure by location and language and compare with your overall figures.
Do not extrapolate
The evidence for adoption in India
The Reuters Institute's 2025 Digital News Report found that almost a fifth of its Indian sample, 18%, used chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini to access news weekly, compared with 7% across 48 markets and 3% in the UK. That is one behaviour, self-reported, in one survey. It is nonetheless independent evidence that adoption is comparatively high, and Google has said AI Mode has more than 100 million monthly active users in the United States and India together.
Build a bilingual prompt set
| Version | Example form | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| English | Best accounting software for a small business in Pune | Baseline |
| Native script | Written in Hindi or another language by a fluent speaker | Tests retrieval in the language |
| Romanised | The same question typed in Latin letters as on a phone | Tests transliteration |
| Mixed | English brand and product words inside a Hindi sentence | Matches everyday usage |
Make local facts machine-readable
- State service areas, cities and states in text on the relevant pages.
- Show prices in rupees and mention taxes and delivery terms plainly.
- Keep business profile details consistent with your website.
- Use correct language and region attributes on each page.
- List regional offices and support hours in text, not only in an image.
Sources that matter locally
Local directories, marketplaces, trade associations and regional publications may be cited alongside global review sites. Run your prompts, record the domains cited, and find the ones that recur for your category and region. Completing your profile and earning accurate coverage there is often the fastest gain.
Be careful with numbers
Published usage figures for India are limited for several platforms, and we do not estimate any that do not exist. Use the India hub for what has been published, with sources, and avoid presenting guesses as data in your own reports.
Do I need a separate site per language?
Not necessarily. Clear, well structured pages in each language you serve, with correct language tags, are the priority.
Will Hindi content help English answers?
It can help wherever a platform retrieves local pages, but results differ by platform. Measure rather than assume.
Which Indian language should I start with?
The one your customers use most, based on your own data. Start with one, measure the gap against English, and expand where the numbers justify it.
Is machine translation enough for pages?
It is rarely enough. Native review matters for both readers and the way systems match questions to pages.
Sources
- 1. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025: Executive summary (2025 edition, 48 markets)
- 2. TechCrunch: Google's AI Overviews have 2B monthly users, AI Mode 100M in the US and India (Alphabet Q2 2025 earnings call, 23 Jul 2025)
Cite this page
BrandWater AI Research. (2026, 17 September 2026). GEO for Indian brands: local context, regional languages and Indian sources. https://brandwaterai.in/guides/geo-for-indian-brands
How we work
Figures are dated and linked to their sources. Where none exist we say so. Read our methodology and AI transparency pages.