India Among Top Countries Using Meta AI, Says Meta India head

A year since its launch, Meta AI has witnessed significant adoption in India, making it one of the largest countries in terms of usage. Sandhya Devanathan, Vice-President of Meta India, revealed this insight during the Razorpay FTX'25 event in Bengaluru on Thursday.

Meta AI's Growing Popularity in India

With over 700 million global users, Meta AI has become a core component of the tech giant’s suite of offerings, including Instagram and WhatsApp.

“India is one of the largest countries for Meta AI usage, which is usage of the AI tool within Instagram and WhatsApp. It has surprised us with the kind of use cases we have seen,” said Sandhya Devanathan, Vice-President of Meta India.

Meta AI was rolled out in India in June 2024, as per a company blog post, and has since seen rapid adoption across various user segments.

Meta’s Commitment to Open Source and AI Development

Emphasizing Meta's dedication to open-source AI innovation, Devanathan stated:

“Our commitment to open source will remain, and that's something central to what we do as a company.”

Meta AI operates on a large language model (LLM) based on Meta’s Llama 3. In July 2024, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg released Llama as an open-sourced AI model, furthering the company's commitment to AI democratization.

Open-Source AI Driving Innovation

Meta has released over a thousand datasets and models to researchers, developers, and academia, enabling advancements in AI applications. Devanathan highlighted how this strategy benefits both external stakeholders and Meta’s internal AI-driven operations.

“We found it helped make our own usage of our open-source products smarter and faster to execute with fewer errors.”

Meta AI’s Expanding Ecosystem

Llama Stack: Enabling Developer Innovation

Meta AI’s various versions have been downloaded over 650 million times globally. To support developers, Meta introduced Llama Stack, a tool designed to help build custom AI-driven applications.

“Over a period of time, you would have seen inferencing costs come down (for companies). We've now introduced Llama Stack, which helps developers actually build their own agentic tools on top of Llama,” explained Devanathan.

AI Adoption Among Businesses

Meta has also been actively supporting new businesses by providing generative AI (GenAI) tools. More than 4 million businesses have utilized at least one of Meta’s GenAI products for tasks such as image creation and creative design testing.

Meta’s Investment in India’s Digital Future

Subsea Cable Network to Enhance AI Connectivity

Last week, Meta announced its ambitious plan to build a 50,000 km subsea cable network connecting major global regions, including the United States, India, Brazil, and South Africa. This initiative aims to create robust oceanic corridors that facilitate high-speed connectivity essential for AI-driven innovations.

A company spokesperson stated that this investment aligns with India’s growing digital needs and reinforces Meta’s commitment to technological advancement in the country.

Partnership with 'IndiaAI' for AI Advancement

In October 2024, Meta collaborated with 'IndiaAI,' a Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) initiative. This partnership aims to accelerate open-source AI innovation, research & development, and skill-building efforts in India.

Conclusion

India's rapid adoption of Meta AI underscores the country’s growing digital footprint and its role as a global technology leader. Meta’s ongoing investments in AI infrastructure, open-source innovation, and business support reflect its strategic commitment to India’s digital future. As AI adoption continues to rise, Meta's initiatives are poised to shape the next wave of technological advancements in the country.