As Artificial Intelligence becomes increasingly embedded across sectors, its implications extend beyond technological innovation to questions of market structure, competition and consumer choice. For India, where the AI ecosystem is expanding alongside significant investments in digital infrastructure and growing enterprise adoption, understanding these emerging market dynamics is becoming increasingly important.
Against this backdrop, The Dialogue presents Competition, Innovation, and Market Structure in India’s AI Ecosystem: An Empirical Assessment, a research report examining how competition is evolving across India’s AI value chain and what these developments could mean for the country’s competition policy framework.
Drawing on 308 primary survey responses from business users, AI startups and developers, and consumers, the report brings together perspectives from across the ecosystem to examine how AI is being developed, adopted and experienced in India.
The study explores some of the questions that are becoming central to the future of India’s AI markets: Are critical inputs such as compute, data and talent creating barriers to participation? What role is open source playing in shaping market access? How are businesses navigating choice and switching? And what do consumer experiences reveal about competition, transparency and emerging forms of dependence?
It also situates these findings within the wider competition policy debate, examining emerging theories of harm and regulatory approaches across jurisdictions to consider what an appropriate policy trajectory could look like for India as its AI ecosystem matures.
What does the evidence tell us about the actual state of competition in India’s AI ecosystem? And where should policymakers draw the line between enabling innovation and responding to emerging competitive concerns?
Download the full report to explore the findings, empirical insights and policy considerations.
