From homework to coding: What Indians really use AI for in 2026

Did you know? India accounts for 7.1% of all Claude conversations globally, making it the platform's second-largest market after the US. Considering India's massive population, it is worth asking how they interact with AI on a daily basis.

According to new data from the Anthropic Economic Index, Indians primarily use AI for homework, coding and software development, content writing, learning and education, and other business-related tasks. Hence, rather than using the AI casually, Indians are utilizing the technology for productivity and technical purposes.

Homework leads, but business-building isn't far behind

The report highlighted that 7.9% of Claude conversations are related to homework, making it the top use case. However, front-end web development is the second use case, which accounts for over 5.1% of conversations.

Apart from these two, Claude conversations also revolve around self-presentation writing (4.6%), promotional writing (4.6%), starting a business (3.6%) and business operations (3.0%) all rank high, alongside certification and training (2.9%), math and CS theory (2.8%), slide decks (2.3%) and AI app-building itself (2.2%).

Taken together, it showcased a creation-led, practical use of the technology, highlighting that people use AI to study, to pitch, and to build.

India’s usage pattern

Compared to the global average, India used AI for technical work rather than general conversations or entertainment. The majority of Claude conversations revolved around mathematics and computer science concepts twice as often as the average user worldwide. In addition, AI app-building is 80% more common than the world average

Indians also used Claude to rewrite, summarise, translate, edit or reformat documents, doing so 60% more often than the global average. However, India's AI usage is heavily tilted toward engineering, coding, STEM education, and software development.

India’s AI usage by occupation

Around one in four Claude conversations in India were performed by software engineers, programmers, data scientists, AI developers, or mathematicians. Nearly 15% of conversations relate to teaching, studying, tutoring, research or educational content. Many also rely on Claude for creative work such as writing articles, designing content, brainstorming ideas, editing text, and creating marketing material.

Other occupations include sales, office and administration, management, business, and finance, among others.