iWorld
Voot will exclusively stream IIFA 2016
MUMBAI: Riding on the back of an immensely successful launch and a high decibel marketing campaign, VOOT by Viacom18, today announced its partnership with India’s most awaited and celebrated film celebration – IIFA 2016. This strategic alliance with the International Indian Film Academy is in line with Voot’s promise of bringing differentiated and engaging content to its digital audience.
With IIFA 2016 ready to take off later this month in Madrid, VOOT is gearing up to converge the younger generation who are getting their TV entertainment from Internet-connected devices with the razzmatazz of this Bollywood extravaganza.
Speaking about the association, Viacom18 Digital Ventures COO Gaurav Gandhi said, “We are delighted to partner with IIFA to bring the biggest Bollywood Awards extravaganza to the digital audiences In India. Within a very short period, Voot has already emerged as a go-to online destination for the biggest TV shows, Kids content and Digital Originals (Voot Originals). With this association with IIFA, which already enjoys a massive fan following in India, we are further strengthening our Bollywood proposition as well. Viewers in India will now be able to stream all IIFA 2016 Awards, IIFA Rocks and related content on their mobile and computer screens on-demand and this will be available exclusively on Voot”
Wizcraft International director Sabbas Joseph said, “IIFA is all about celebrating Indian Cinema and bringing a grand cinematic experience to fans in India and across the world. Within a short span of time Voot has forged its prominence in the digital entertainment world and we are delighted to be partnering with them for IIFA 2016. The partnership will not only magnify the IIFA experience for its Indian fans – with the content now being available on-demand across screens, but it will also increase IIFA’s overall reach to a newer audience base that prefers to consume content primarily on their digital devices.”
IIFA 2016 hosts the most spectacular celebrity weekend where the stars and their fans converge together in Madrid, Spain. The highlights of the celebrations are the Videocon d2h IIFA Weekend and the Nexa IIFA Awards powered by LeEco. The entire event is organized and produced by Wizcraft International Entertainment.
Hosted by Shahid Kapoor and Farhan Akhtar, the star-studded event will showcase scintillating performances by the country’s foremost heartthrobs Salman Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Sonakshi Sinha, Tiger Shroff and many more. VOOT will help all Bollywood aficionados to watch them up close and personal on their preferred screens.
Amongst all Indian OTT players, Voot, in a very short span, already has the most amount of original content.
Voot is available for free on iOS, Android and web and delivered over mobile and WiFi networks. With a stellar line-up of content available across genres and languages, Voot assures to keep you definitely wanting for more!
eNews
India uses ChatGPT for technical tasks nearly 4 times the world average: OpenAI
From classrooms to code, India’s AI use is increasingly skill-driven and youth-led.
MUMBAI: If code is the new currency, India is already minting it by the million prompts. In the world’s largest democracy, artificial intelligence is no longer a distant abstraction or a boardroom buzzword. It is a daily companion, drafting emails in Hyderabad, debugging code in Bengaluru, polishing essays in Delhi, and fielding life advice in towns far beyond the metros. Fresh data from OpenAI’s “Signals” initiative offers a rare, granular glimpse into how India is using ChatGPT, and the numbers suggest the country is not just adopting AI; it is actively shaping its use.
India is one of the largest markets globally for ChatGPT’s weekly active users and ranks among the top five countries for API usage. With OpenAI’s global consumer base exceeding 800 million users, most of them on free tiers, the dataset captures adoption patterns that go far beyond enterprise subscriptions.
Indian users, notably, are punching above their weight when it comes to advanced capabilities. Among ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers, usage of the data analysis tool is roughly four times above the global median. Use of Codex, OpenAI’s coding platform, is about three times above the median. Indians are nearly three times more likely than the global median to ask coding-related questions and almost twice as likely to seek help on education and learning.
This matters because it signals something economists call a shrinking “capability overhang”, which is the gap between what AI tools can do and how fully users exploit them. In India, that gap appears to be narrowing rapidly.
The geography of this coding intensity tracks the country’s technology hubs. Telangana, which is home to Hyderabad, ranks first in usage of OpenAI’s coding capabilities. Karnataka, home to Bengaluru, follows in second place, while Tamil Nadu comes third. In other words, the prompt traffic mirrors the tech corridors.
Nearly two-thirds of consumer ChatGPT messages in India are now non-work related, while slightly over one-third are tied to work. That marks a significant shift. In earlier phases of adoption, work was the dominant use case. It was only in early 2025 that non-work messages overtook professional use, and the divergence widened throughout the year.
Even so, India remains slightly above the global average in work-related usage. Around 35 per cent of consumer messages in India relate to work, compared with roughly 30 per cent globally.
At work, the emphasis is squarely task-oriented. Around 45 per cent of work-related conversations fall into “doing” behaviours such as drafting documents, transforming text, and completing tasks, compared with a much smaller share in non-work contexts. Technical help and writing dominate. In offices across the country, ChatGPT functions as a digital co-pilot that debugs code, polishes presentations, and unblocks stalled workflows.
Outside work, the tone shifts. Over 35 per cent of non-work messages revolve around practical guidance, which includes everyday advice and how-to queries. Roughly 20 per cent relate to seeking information. Nearly one-fifth involve writing tasks such as drafting or editing. Self-expression and learning loom large. In personal life, Indians appear to use AI less as an executor and more as an explainer, sounding board, and study partner.
India’s demographic dividend is clearly reflected in its AI habits.
Users aged 18 to 24 now account for just under half of all ChatGPT messages sent in the country. They surpassed the 25 to 34 age group in mid-2024 and have held the lead ever since. Globally, the 18 to 24 cohort accounts for about one-third of messages; in India, the share is markedly higher.
Combined, users aged 18 to 34 generate roughly 80 per cent of total consumer ChatGPT messages in India. Given that around 40 per cent of India’s population is under 25, the youth skew is unsurprising, but its implications are profound. Education-related queries, early-career problem-solving, and skills development are likely to dominate near-term AI impacts.
Usage patterns also differ by age. The 18 to 24 cohort accounts for a near majority of messages seeking practical guidance, technical help, and self-expression. Meanwhile, the 24 to 34 group sends a slightly higher share of multimedia and technical help queries relative to its overall share of usage.
If AI norms are being written in real time, it is young Indians who are holding the pen.
OpenAI does not collect gender data, but inferred patterns based on typically masculine and feminine first names reveal a measurable gap in India. A little under 60 per cent of users have typically masculine names, and just over 40 per cent have typically feminine names. This skew is more pronounced than the global average.
Worldwide, users with typically feminine names now account for slightly more than half of all messages. This shift occurred only in the summer of 2025, when feminine-name usage overtook masculine-name usage globally. In India, the gap persists, although it has been narrowing over the past year.
There are also topical differences. Users with typically feminine names are more likely to send messages related to self-expression, practical guidance, and writing. Those with typically masculine names lean more towards seeking information and technical help.
The data does not capture motivations, but it does highlight where inclusion efforts and digital literacy initiatives could focus if AI is to broaden opportunity rather than deepen divides.
The consumer story aligns with India’s broader AI momentum. The country ranks second globally in AI skills penetration and has one of the fastest-growing AI talent pools. It accounts for 9.2 per cent of global AI publications in computer science as of 2023, which represents a substantial contribution to research output.
At the same time, investment in AI data centres and digital public infrastructure is expanding, promising to knit together datasets and resources at scale. Enterprise adoption is also robust, which suggests that consumer experimentation is unfolding alongside institutional integration.
OpenAI’s “Signals” project is built with aggregated, privacy-preserving data and released with a time lag. It aims to provide a durable measurement layer for the AI era. The idea is not to track individuals, but to surface patterns such as where adoption is accelerating, who is using the tools, and what they are actually doing.
In a country as vast and varied as India, such evidence is more than academic. It shapes decisions about workforce training, small business support, education policy, and safeguards.
For now, the numbers paint a picture of a nation that is not merely consuming AI, but conversing with it in an energetic, experimental, and increasingly skilful manner. In India, the future of work and learning is not being downloaded. It is being drafted, debugged, and rewritten in real time.
