iWorld
OTT platforms chasing the regional pie
MUMBAI: It isn't just the broadcast sector that's woken up to the call of the regional, but even the budding over the top (OTT) platforms.
On the stage of Vidnet 2018, hosted by Indiantelevision.com, experts from India’s leading OTT platforms were present. Voot Originals head and VP Viacom Tanya Bami, Eros Now VP editorial and content strategy Piyush Bhatia, monozygotic CEO Ravi Luthria, Arre Sharan Budraja and Spuul content head Girish Dwibhashyam shared their views on the state of content on OTT. The panel was moderated by Monozygotic founder Rajiv Laxman.
Dwibhashyam highlighted about Spuul’s SVOD format and said that initially its primary focus was largely outside India but over a period of time, it captured users in India as well. According to him, currently, long form and live television are more suited for SVOD and for short form content which is less than 10 minutes, AVOD is the way to go. He added, “Earlier, viewership used to come from Mumbai, Delhi metro belt but in the last 9-10 months the consumption has started coming in from the small towns for regional languages like Bhojpuri, Punjabi and that is the trend that we are observing these days. So our focus in India will be more in vernacular languages as we believe that the next 400 million internet users will be different from people right now and they will largely speak vernacular language and would want to watch the content in their own language rather than English language.”
Bami agreed to Dwibhashyam's point about Indian audiences getting inclined towards regional content. She said, “Half of the population is supposed to parallelly grow by 23 per cent in the next couple of years. So, those are people moving away from TV and if they were to watch TV, they will be already on Voot.” Furthermore, according to her, people are moving away from conventional mainstream content and are looking at the international channels and OTT platforms and those are the stories that are offered in regional languages which will gain traction from the viewers. “So the attempt is to move into pure-play storytelling and that will attract newer audiences to the ones who are digital natives. So to top-up the footfall that we may have is why we would go SVOD. Each show will attract the audiences like we did a very big experiment with a popular show on MTV, Kaisi ye Yaariyan, by bringing it on Voot.”
Throwing light on the original content on the platforms, Bami said that serving original content is a must, but content strategy is also important. She said that the platform will be able to maximise and juice it up around content like extra dose, or behind the scenes or probably any sort of engaging content to the audiences will attract eyeballs. She explained by giving an example of Bigg Boss’s content strategy on Voot with Video Vichaar.
Commenting on the same, Bhatia also added that original content is everyone’s primary focus on every OTT platform. While Luthria said the industry should get into more collaborations and developing content base because that will drive the industry. “Three years down the line you see the problem coming in that there are so many things happening. Also, if you are saying that there is no consolidation, then there will be more disruptive content because everyone will be running behind the same pie. So, I suggest there should be collaborative, creative content development.”
Dwibhashyam concluded by saying that the Bible for content for OTT will be the internal consumption dashboard. “I think the future is going to be where we have seen it with Netflix or Amazon that how they used their internal data, that every platform today knows what content is actually getting consumed and what type of content works basically and in future consumers are going to see the stuff that they would like to watch.”
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.
