India may be faster in AI adoption than America in ten years with its youthful, more optimistic population embracing the new wave of technology, Zoho Corporation Co-founder and Chief Scientist, Sridhar Vembu said on Wednesday.
Like how UPI became mass-scale in India, AI could also be the same, Vembu said while speaking at the AI Impact Summit here.
Citing the example of fibre optics, he said back in 2000s American venture capitalists sold many "10s of billions (of dollars) into telecom companies, particularly fiber optics" and it is "everywhere in India" but not so in America.
3 February 2026
Get the latest issue of Outlook Business
"...in 10 years...India might be faster in terms of AI adoption than even America...," Vembu said.
He further said the reason is that "we have a very youthful optimistic population. We don't have a population that is very skeptical...which is a blessing." Unlike the "unwilling crowd", he said in India the openness to accept and embrace AI is much higher.
For the country to be ahead in AI, Vembu asked the young entrepreneurs and start-ups to "optimistically experiment" and keep learning from the challenges.
