OpenAI's AI coding and productivity tool Codex has seen its weekly active users in India grow 27 times since the start of 2026, the US-based artificial intelligence company revealed on Friday, 29 May, sharing fresh data on the sidelines of Mumbai Tech Week. The figures underscore India's rapidly expanding role as one of the world's most engaged markets for AI-powered development tools.

Key Growth Figures

According to OpenAI, daily interactions with Codex in India had increased by more than 20 times by late April 2026 compared to levels recorded at the beginning of the year. The company confirmed that India remains among the top five countries globally for Codex adoption and within the top 10 markets worldwide for overall platform engagement.

Earlier data shared by the company had indicated that coding-related usage of Codex in India was approximately three times higher than the global average, and that coding-related queries from Indian users were nearly three times the global median.

Beyond Coding: A Broader Use Case Emerges

Usage patterns now reveal that Codex is being deployed well beyond traditional software development. More than one-fourth of all requests on the platform in India are currently related to non-coding activities. Users are increasingly turning to the tool to synthesise information, draft documents, automate research tasks, and organise workflows and communications.

This shift signals a meaningful expansion of the platform's addressable audience — from software engineers to a broader class of knowledge workers.

What OpenAI Said

Thomas Jeng, Head of Startups – APAC at OpenAI, said the India story stood out for the diversity of its adopters. 'What's exciting about India is that adoption is not just happening among software engineers. We are seeing founders, operators, researchers, students and business teams increasingly use Codex to turn ideas into working outcomes faster,' he said.

Jeng added that while Codex initially emerged as a coding-focused product, users are increasingly leveraging it to move from intent to execution across multiple dimensions of work.

Why India's Adoption Stands Out

OpenAI attributed the accelerating uptake to India's expanding builder ecosystem and rising enterprise demand for AI productivity tools. This comes amid a broader global surge in developer-facing AI adoption, with India consistently ranking among the fastest-growing markets for tools such as GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT. Notably, the 27x growth figure covers only the first five months of 2026, suggesting the full-year trajectory could be significantly higher.

What's Next

With enterprise demand rising and use cases diversifying, OpenAI is expected to deepen its India focus. The company's presence at Mumbai Tech Week signals a deliberate push to engage the local startup and developer community. How quickly non-coding use cases scale will likely determine whether India moves from a top-five to a top-three Codex market by year-end.