India might be the biggest market for tech giants, but it’s definitely not the first choice for them. On his recent India visit, though OpenAI chief Sam Altman mentioned that there has been a lot of early adoption and enthusiasm from Indian users, India was not considered in the first list of countries that got access to the ChatGPT app on iOS. Interestingly, even countries such as Nicaragua, Nigeria and Jamaica made the cut to the list of early release. Similarly, Google’s Bard was first released in the US and UK in March. It was only after two months that Google’s chatbot was released to 180 countries, including India.

Now recently, Google made several new improvements to its Search Generative Experience, inviting users to experiment with its generative AI-powered search engine via Search Labs. However, the service is not available in India and is open for limited users in the US only. 

What’s more? Launched in 2021, Meta’s social VR platform Horizon Worlds that allows users to create and explore virtual worlds was originally available in the US and Canada only. It is now available in seven countries, restricted to US and Europe. Ironically, Facebook has the highest number of users from India. There are a close to 315 million Indian users, followed by the US with almost half the number.

So, why is India being ignored when it comes to big tech launches? 

Rules to be blamed

India rules and regulations have often been considered less conducive for tech firms’ functioning. It was only recently that the government was mulling over removing the rule of storing data locally. As per the draft of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill that was unveiled for feedback in November last year, India is planning to allow transfer and storage of personal data in some countries. 

India has always been vocal about having specific privacy laws that would cater to the governance of the country. Looking at the current scenario, when countries across the globe are thinking about bringing AI regulations and even contemplating having an international body for regulating AI, India holds a different view. When Altman was crusading for AI regulatory frameworks, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar was clear in his stance on how AI should have guardrails.  

Catering specifically to the needs of the local market becomes another determining factor when releasing products that require local needs and preferences. When products such as voice assistants were released such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, companies chose to first launch them in their home country sticking to English alone. Understanding the local languages, accents and user behaviour was essential before releasing it in a country such as India. Alexa was launched in the US in 2014 in the US, but reached India only in 2017. Similarly, Google Home was introduced in the US in 2016 but came to India only in 2018. 

In spite of having contradictory views with the world or having its own set of restrictions, India has been a market of quick adoption, including AI technology. As of May, India had the second highest number of ChatGPT users across the globe (6.32% of total users), right after US (15.22%). India is also poised to grow tremendously in the AI market, and as per AIM report, the AI market size in India is expected to grow to $71 bn by 2027. 

Source: AIM

The importance of India

With increased tech adoption and investments in the tech space, India has always been the forerunner in the technology adoption. India was ranked among top 10 countries in the world in terms of spending and investments on AI made by public, government and private institutions. 

GitHub had mentioned earlier that India is the fastest-growing country in the world in terms of developers contributing to open source. As of November, GitHub has over 9.75 million developers in India which makes it the second largest developer community on the platform, only behind the US. 

Replit, another developer community, has also been witnessing similar growth. India is one of the fastest and second largest markets for Replit. Anshul Bide, BizOps, India head at Replit told AIM that people even code using their mobile devices in India — a makeshift way of moving forward despite difficulties. 

It is obvious that big techs skipping India for tech launches are losing on the massive pool of quick adopters, which is an opportunity wasted.