Bangladesh
5.6 points below what its income predicts · expected 33.4% at its GDP per capita
Bangladesh ranks 5 of 5 countries in South Asia: 27.8% of its task time is at least partly delegable, below the world figure of 35.2% and 20.9 points below high-income countries.
| Indicator | Bangladesh | Rank in region | Highest in region | Region | High income | World | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delegability | |||||||
| ADI: task time at least partly delegable (L2–L3) | 27.8 | 5 of 5 | Maldives (43.4) | 28.0 | 48.7 | 35.2 | ADI v2026.1 |
| ADI3: task time fully delegable (L3) | 1.8 | 4 of 5 | Maldives (3.3) | 1.7 | 3.7 | 2.5 | ADI v2026.1 |
| ADIs: expected share of working time delegable | 25.2 | 4 of 5 | Maldives (34.2) | 25.2 | 37.4 | 29.5 | ADI v2026.1 |
| Adoption | |||||||
| AI use per working-age adult (index) | 0.11 | 4 of 4 | Sri Lanka (0.52) | 0.33 | 2.80 | 1.53 | Anthropic Economic Index |
| Context | |||||||
| GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2021 international $) | 8,677 | 4 of 5 | Maldives (24,401) | 12,595 | 56,341 | 27,620 | World Bank WDI |
| Informal employment, % of total employment | 84.0 | 4 of 5 | Maldives (47.3) | 72.6 | 12.5 | 50.2 | ILOSTAT |
Region: the 5 countries of South Asia in the atlas (World Bank regions). Delegability rows are employment-weighted means; adoption and context rows are simple means over countries with data. For informality, rank 1 is the lowest. With equal weights inside reported groups, the preregistered sensitivity check, Bangladesh’s ADI is 27.5%.
Bangladesh against the delegation divide
Each flag is a country; the dashed line is what GDP per capita alone predicts. South Asia keeps its colours, the rest is grey. Bangladesh is 5.6 points below what its income predicts.
Balam Labs · Agent Delegability Index v2026.1 · balamlabs.org/adi
Who works in Bangladesh, and how delegable their tasks are
Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers and service and sales workers supply 54% of Bangladesh’s delegable task time while employing 56% of its workers.
Hover a block to read one group. Shade: the group’s ADI, light 10% to dark 85%.
| Major group | Employment, Bangladesh | World | ADI of group, Bangladesh | Points of ADI, Bangladesh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Managers | 1.3% | 3.9% | 78.4 | 1.1 |
| 4 · Clerical support workers | 1.0% | 5.0% | 74.8 | 0.8 |
| 2 · Professionals | 4.6% | 11.2% | 61.1 | 2.8 |
| 3 · Technicians and associate professionals | 2.7% | 6.7% | 76.0 | 2.0 |
| 5 · Service and sales workers | 14.9% | 17.8% | 47.8 | 7.1 |
| 8 · Plant and machine operators and assemblers | 8.9% | 7.6% | 25.6 | 2.3 |
| 6 · Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers | 41.3% | 21.9% | 19.3 | 8.0 |
| 7 · Craft and related trades workers | 15.0% | 10.8% | 16.8 | 2.5 |
| 9 · Elementary occupations | 10.4% | 15.2% | 12.3 | 1.3 |
Barriers, weighted by its jobs
The largest gap with the world is physical presence: 80% of task weight against 72% worldwide, a heavier brake on agents.
| Barrier | Share of task weight | BGD | World |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical presence | 80% | 72% | |
| Accountability | 24% | 26% | |
| Trust and care | 23% | 26% | |
| Access to systems | 58% | 59% |
Dashed tick: world, weighting the same tasks by world employment. A task can carry more than one barrier.
Delegable work and actual AI use
With 0.11× the world’s Claude use per working-age person, Bangladesh uses AI about as much as its delegable work would suggest (gap -0.15 standard deviations).
Balam Labs · Agent Delegability Index v2026.1 · balamlabs.org/adi
Within its region
Bangladesh closes South Asia at 27.8%, behind India (27.8%); Maldives leads the region at 43.4%.
Dashed line: regional employment-weighted mean, 28.0%. World: 35.2%.
Espinal Maya, Cristian, and Santiago Jiménez Londoño. 2026. ADI v2026.1: Agent Delegability Index data, code and MCP server. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23552918. Record: Bangladesh (BGD), https://balamlabs.org/adi/countries/BGD
@misc{espinal2026adidata,
title = {{ADI} v2026.1: Agent Delegability Index data, code and {MCP} server},
author = {Espinal Maya, Cristian and Jim{\'e}nez Londo{\~n}o, Santiago},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Zenodo},
version = {v2026.1},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23552918},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23552918},
note = {Record: Bangladesh (BGD)}
}Static JSON: /adi/v2026.1/country/BGD.json