Nepal
5.0 points above what its income predicts · expected 29.8% at its GDP per capita
Nepal ranks 2 of 5 countries in South Asia: 34.8% of its task time is at least partly delegable, below the world figure of 35.2% and 13.9 points below high-income countries.
| Indicator | Nepal | Rank in region | Highest in region | Region | High income | World | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delegability | |||||||
| ADI: task time at least partly delegable (L2–L3) | 34.8 | 2 of 5 | Maldives (43.4) | 28.0 | 48.7 | 35.2 | ADI v2026.1 |
| ADI3: task time fully delegable (L3) | 2.2 | 3 of 5 | Maldives (3.3) | 1.7 | 3.7 | 2.5 | ADI v2026.1 |
| ADIs: expected share of working time delegable | 28.9 | 2 of 5 | Maldives (34.2) | 25.2 | 37.4 | 29.5 | ADI v2026.1 |
| Adoption | |||||||
| AI use per working-age adult (index) | 0.39 | 2 of 4 | Sri Lanka (0.52) | 0.33 | 2.80 | 1.53 | Anthropic Economic Index |
| Context | |||||||
| GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2021 international $) | 5,277 | 5 of 5 | Maldives (24,401) | 12,595 | 56,341 | 27,620 | World Bank WDI |
| Informal employment, % of total employment | 78.3 | 3 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, Nepal’s ADI is 32.7%.
Nepal 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. Nepal is 5.0 points above what its income predicts.
Balam Labs · Agent Delegability Index v2026.1 · balamlabs.org/adi
Who works in Nepal, and how delegable their tasks are
Service and sales workers and managers supply 45% of Nepal’s delegable task time while employing 29% of its workers.
Hover a block to read one group. Shade: the group’s ADI, light 10% to dark 85%.
| Major group | Employment, Nepal | World | ADI of group, Nepal | Points of ADI, Nepal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Managers | 7.4% | 3.9% | 80.6 | 5.9 |
| 4 · Clerical support workers | 3.3% | 5.0% | 77.6 | 2.6 |
| 2 · Professionals | 8.5% | 11.2% | 57.2 | 4.9 |
| 3 · Technicians and associate professionals | 4.8% | 6.7% | 63.7 | 3.1 |
| 5 · Service and sales workers | 21.5% | 17.8% | 45.9 | 9.8 |
| 8 · Plant and machine operators and assemblers | 6.7% | 7.6% | 24.8 | 1.7 |
| 6 · Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers | 2.5% | 21.9% | 18.5 | 0.5 |
| 7 · Craft and related trades workers | 18.1% | 10.8% | 17.3 | 3.1 |
| 9 · Elementary occupations | 27.2% | 15.2% | 11.8 | 3.2 |
Barriers, weighted by its jobs
The largest gap with the world is access to systems: 56% of task weight against 59% worldwide, a lighter brake on agents.
| Barrier | Share of task weight | NPL | World |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical presence | 73% | 72% | |
| Accountability | 22% | 26% | |
| Trust and care | 26% | 26% | |
| Access to systems | 56% | 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 0.39× the world’s Claude use per working-age person, Nepal uses AI about as much as its delegable work would suggest (gap +0.35 standard deviations).
Balam Labs · Agent Delegability Index v2026.1 · balamlabs.org/adi
Within its region
Nepal sits between Maldives (43.4%) and Sri Lanka (33.3%); 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: Nepal (NPL), https://balamlabs.org/adi/countries/NPL
@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: Nepal (NPL)}
}Static JSON: /adi/v2026.1/country/NPL.json