Sri Lanka
3.8 points below what its income predicts · expected 37.1% at its GDP per capita
Sri Lanka ranks 3 of 5 countries in South Asia: 33.3% of its task time is at least partly delegable, below the world figure of 35.2% and 15.4 points below high-income countries.
| Indicator | Sri Lanka | Rank in region | Highest in region | Region | High income | World | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delegability | |||||||
| ADI: task time at least partly delegable (L2–L3) | 33.3 | 3 of 5 | Maldives (43.4) | 28.0 | 48.7 | 35.2 | ADI v2026.1 |
| ADI3: task time fully delegable (L3) | 2.3 | 2 of 5 | Maldives (3.3) | 1.7 | 3.7 | 2.5 | ADI v2026.1 |
| ADIs: expected share of working time delegable | 28.4 | 3 of 5 | Maldives (34.2) | 25.2 | 37.4 | 29.5 | ADI v2026.1 |
| Adoption | |||||||
| AI use per working-age adult (index) | 0.52 | 1 of 4 | Sri Lanka (0.52) | 0.33 | 2.80 | 1.53 | Anthropic Economic Index |
| Context | |||||||
| GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2021 international $) | 14,583 | 2 of 5 | Maldives (24,401) | 12,595 | 56,341 | 27,620 | World Bank WDI |
| Informal employment, % of total employment | 66.4 | 2 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, Sri Lanka’s ADI is 31.9%.
Sri Lanka 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. Sri Lanka is 3.8 points below what its income predicts.
Balam Labs · Agent Delegability Index v2026.1 · balamlabs.org/adi
Who works in Sri Lanka, and how delegable their tasks are
Technicians and associate professionals and service and sales workers supply 37% of Sri Lanka’s delegable task time while employing 21% of its workers.
Hover a block to read one group. Shade: the group’s ADI, light 10% to dark 85%.
| Major group | Employment, Sri Lanka | World | ADI of group, Sri Lanka | Points of ADI, Sri Lanka |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Managers | 4.4% | 3.9% | 80.7 | 3.5 |
| 4 · Clerical support workers | 3.6% | 5.0% | 77.1 | 2.8 |
| 2 · Professionals | 7.6% | 11.2% | 59.2 | 4.5 |
| 3 · Technicians and associate professionals | 8.8% | 6.7% | 76.0 | 6.7 |
| 5 · Service and sales workers | 12.6% | 17.8% | 43.9 | 5.5 |
| 8 · Plant and machine operators and assemblers | 10.1% | 7.6% | 19.5 | 2.0 |
| 6 · Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers | 14.0% | 21.9% | 19.3 | 2.7 |
| 7 · Craft and related trades workers | 13.8% | 10.8% | 17.2 | 2.4 |
| 9 · Elementary occupations | 25.1% | 15.2% | 13.0 | 3.3 |
Barriers, weighted by its jobs
Its barriers sit close to the world’s: the work mix weighs about the same as everywhere else.
| Barrier | Share of task weight | LKA | World |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical presence | 75% | 72% | |
| Accountability | 24% | 26% | |
| Trust and care | 24% | 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 0.52× the world’s Claude use per working-age person, Sri Lanka uses AI about as much as its delegable work would suggest (gap +0.12 standard deviations).
Balam Labs · Agent Delegability Index v2026.1 · balamlabs.org/adi
Sri Lanka among the four income groups
Ring colour: income group. Vertical tick: employment-weighted mean of the row.
Guyana33.3%High incomeCompare
Kyrgyzstan33.4%Lower-middle incomeCompare
The Gambia33.2%Low incomeCompare
Within its region
Sri Lanka sits between Nepal (34.8%) and India (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: Sri Lanka (LKA), https://balamlabs.org/adi/countries/LKA
@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: Sri Lanka (LKA)}
}Static JSON: /adi/v2026.1/country/LKA.json