India
6.6 points below what its income predicts · expected 34.4% at its GDP per capita
India ranks 4 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 | India | Rank in region | Highest in region | Region | High income | World | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delegability | |||||||
| ADI: task time at least partly delegable (L2–L3) | 27.8 | 4 of 5 | Maldives (43.4) | 28.0 | 48.7 | 35.2 | ADI v2026.1 |
| ADI3: task time fully delegable (L3) | 1.7 | 5 of 5 | Maldives (3.3) | 1.7 | 3.7 | 2.5 | ADI v2026.1 |
| ADIs: expected share of working time delegable | 25.1 | 5 of 5 | Maldives (34.2) | 25.2 | 37.4 | 29.5 | ADI v2026.1 |
| Adoption | |||||||
| AI use per working-age adult (index) | 0.30 | 3 of 4 | Sri Lanka (0.52) | 0.33 | 2.80 | 1.53 | Anthropic Economic Index |
| Context | |||||||
| GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2021 international $) | 10,039 | 3 of 5 | Maldives (24,401) | 12,595 | 56,341 | 27,620 | World Bank WDI |
| Informal employment, % of total employment | 87.2 | 5 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, India’s ADI is 27.9%.
India 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. India is 6.6 points below what its income predicts.
Balam Labs · Agent Delegability Index v2026.1 · balamlabs.org/adi
Who works in India, and how delegable their tasks are
Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers and service and sales workers supply 44% of India’s delegable task time while employing 47% of its workers.
Hover a block to read one group. Shade: the group’s ADI, light 10% to dark 85%.
| Major group | Employment, India | World | ADI of group, India | Points of ADI, India |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Managers | 2.8% | 3.9% | 78.9 | 2.2 |
| 4 · Clerical support workers | 2.3% | 5.0% | 78.3 | 1.8 |
| 2 · Professionals | 5.8% | 11.2% | 68.0 | 4.0 |
| 3 · Technicians and associate professionals | 2.7% | 6.7% | 63.0 | 1.7 |
| 5 · Service and sales workers | 13.2% | 17.8% | 44.1 | 5.8 |
| 8 · Plant and machine operators and assemblers | 6.1% | 7.6% | 22.1 | 1.3 |
| 6 · Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers | 34.0% | 21.9% | 18.4 | 6.3 |
| 7 · Craft and related trades workers | 11.5% | 10.8% | 17.4 | 2.0 |
| 9 · Elementary occupations | 21.6% | 15.2% | 12.4 | 2.7 |
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 | IND | World |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical presence | 80% | 72% | |
| Accountability | 24% | 26% | |
| Trust and care | 22% | 26% | |
| Access to systems | 57% | 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 0.30× the world’s Claude use per working-age person, India uses AI about as much as its delegable work would suggest (gap -0.28 standard deviations).
Balam Labs · Agent Delegability Index v2026.1 · balamlabs.org/adi
Within its region
India sits between Sri Lanka (33.3%) and Bangladesh (27.8%); Maldives leads the region at 43.4% and Bangladesh closes it at 27.8%.
| Country | ADI | % |
|---|---|---|
| Maldives | 43.4 | |
| Nepal | 34.8 | |
| Sri Lanka | 33.3 | |
| India | 27.8 | |
| Bangladesh | 27.8 |
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: India (IND), https://balamlabs.org/adi/countries/IND
@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: India (IND)}
}Static JSON: /adi/v2026.1/country/IND.json