ChatGPT Nepal: AI Adoption, Impact, & Digital Divide Analysis
Executive Summary
This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the adoption, impact, and ecosystem surrounding ChatGPT in Nepal. The findings reveal a landscape of profound contradictions. On one hand, ChatGPT has achieved near-total market dominance, becoming the default generative AI tool for a young, digitally-native user base. On the other hand, its potential as a transformative national force is severely constrained by deep-seated structural barriers.
ChatGPT’s market share in Nepal, exceeding 88% across both desktop and mobile platforms, signifies its status as a foundational utility rather than a mere market leader. Its user base is concentrated among the 18-34 age demographic, aligning closely with the nation’s most politically and socially active youth, indicating its influence extends beyond productivity into civic discourse. However, this entire phenomenon is confined to the 55.8% of the Nepali population with internet access. A staggering 44.2% of citizens remain offline, creating a stark digital divide that AI threatens to widen into a chasm of inequality.
In key sectors, the impact is similarly bifurcated. In education, ChatGPT is a double-edged sword, celebrated as a tool for personalized learning and writing assistance while simultaneously raising alarms about academic dishonesty and the erosion of critical thinking. In the economy, its immediate effect is one of “micro-productivity”—individual efficiency gains for students and professionals—while the envisioned macro-level transformation of industries like agriculture and e-commerce remains a distant prospect.
The ecosystem supporting this adoption is characterized by a vibrant, bottom-up momentum from a growing local AI community, contrasted with significant top-down friction. While native Nepali language support in ChatGPT is a powerful enabler of inclusivity, a critical bottleneck exists in the form of systemic payment failures for premium services, effectively capping the nation’s access to high-value AI capabilities.
This dynamic unfolds against the backdrop of Nepal’s ambitious National AI Policy 2025. While the policy’s vision for an inclusive, ethical AI-driven future is commendable, it is widely criticized for its lack of a concrete, funded implementation roadmap. Without a prioritized focus on bridging the digital divide and resolving infrastructural deficits, the policy risks becoming a performative document, failing to translate its vision into reality. Ultimately, this report concludes that for ChatGPT and generative AI to fulfill their promise in Nepal, national strategy must pivot from aspirational goals to the foundational, unglamorous work of building the digital infrastructure and literacy that will allow all citizens to participate in the coming technological revolution.
Section 1: Market Landscape and User Base
This section establishes the quantitative foundation of ChatGPT’s presence in Nepal. It moves from an analysis of its commanding market share to a composite profile of its user base, contextualizing the data within the nation’s broader digital readiness and infrastructural limitations.
1.1 The Unassailable Leader: Quantifying Market Dominance
The penetration of ChatGPT into the Nepali market has been nothing short of absolute. As of September 2025, data from Statcounter reveals a level of market control that transcends typical leadership, positioning the platform as a near-monopoly. On desktop devices, ChatGPT commands an 88.61% market share of the AI chatbot landscape in Nepal. This dominance is even more pronounced in the mobile sphere, where it captures a staggering 89.53% share.
This market position becomes clearer when contrasted with its competitors, who are relegated to marginal roles. On desktop, the closest rival is Perplexity at a distant 4.08%, followed by Microsoft Copilot at 3.79% and Google Gemini at 2.86%. On mobile, Google Gemini fares slightly better but still holds only 7.06% of the market, with all other players falling below 3%. This comprehensive capture across both primary user platforms indicates a deeply entrenched user base.
This local dominance mirrors a global trend. By April 2025, OpenAI reported that ChatGPT had reached 800 million weekly active users globally, a figure that doubled in just two months from 400 million in February 2025. This explosive worldwide growth, driven by new features and enhanced capabilities, provides the context for its rapid and thorough saturation of smaller, digitally-developing markets like Nepal.
The sheer scale of this market share points to a phenomenon beyond simple product preference. A market share approaching 90% suggests that for the vast majority of Nepali internet users, the concept of a generative AI tool is synonymous with the ChatGPT brand. They are not engaging in a comparative evaluation of different AI models; their journey into AI begins and ends with ChatGPT. This elevates the platform from a market-leading product to a default utility, akin to using “Google” as a verb for searching the internet. Consequently, the challenge for competitors like Google, Microsoft, and others is not merely to offer a technologically superior or feature-rich alternative. They face the far more formidable task of breaking a deeply embedded user habit and a powerful brand association that has become the generic entry point to an entire category of technology.
Table 1: AI Chatbot Market Share in Nepal (September 2025)
| AI Chatbot | Desktop Market Share (%) | Mobile Market Share (%) |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 88.61 | 89.53 |
| Perplexity | 4.08 | 1.21 |
| Microsoft Copilot | 3.79 | 2.21 |
| Google Gemini | 2.86 | 7.06 |
| Claude | 0.60 | Not listed |
| Deepseek | 0.05 | Not listed |
| Source: Statcounter | ||
1.2 Profiling the Nepali User: A Composite Sketch
While specific demographic data for ChatGPT users within Nepal is not publicly available, a robust and reliable composite profile can be constructed by triangulating global user statistics with Nepal-specific data on its digital population. This approach reveals a user base that is predominantly young, urban, and increasingly representative of the nation’s gender balance.
Globally, ChatGPT’s user base skews heavily towards younger generations. The 18-34 age group constitutes the platform’s core demographic, accounting for over 54% of all users, with the 25-34 bracket being the single largest cohort at 30.23%. Usage tends to decline with age; those 55 and older represent only about 8-14% of the total user base. In terms of gender, there is a consistent male skew in global data, with various sources placing male users between 54% and 64%. However, this gap is closing rapidly. An OpenAI study noted that the share of users with typically feminine names rose from 37% in January 2024 to over 52% by July 2025, suggesting a significant trend towards gender parity. Furthermore, users with higher levels of education are more likely to adopt the tool; 37% of individuals with a postgraduate degree have used ChatGPT, compared to only 12% of those with a high school diploma or less.
This global profile aligns closely with the characteristics of Nepal’s own digitally active population, which serves as a strong proxy for the local ChatGPT user base. According to data, the largest demographic cohorts in Nepal are the 18-24 age group (13.6% of the population) and the 25-34 age group (16.7%). These two groups, which form the core of ChatGPT’s global audience, are also the most digitally engaged in Nepal. Among Nepal’s 14.3 million social media users, the gender distribution is 55.7% male and 44.3% female, a more balanced split than some global ChatGPT figures suggest.
Synthesizing these data points, the typical Nepali ChatGPT user can be profiled as a male or female individual between the ages of 18 and 34, likely residing in an urban center with reliable internet access, and possessing at least some college-level education. The narrowing global gender gap, combined with Nepal’s relatively balanced social media demographics, suggests that local usage may be closer to gender parity than in other regions.
The strong alignment between the demographic profile of a ChatGPT user and that of Nepal’s politically engaged youth is particularly significant. Recent social movements, notably the “Gen Z uprising,” have been characterized by economic frustration and a demand for political change from a generation that is highly educated, digitally fluent, and civically active. Crucially, analysis of the online discourse during these protests revealed that digital tools, including AI-generated content, played a major role in mobilization and in shaping the public narrative. This convergence demonstrates that ChatGPT is not being adopted in a social vacuum. It is being integrated as a key component of the digital toolkit for the nation’s most dynamic demographic. This implies its influence is not confined to academic or professional productivity; it extends into the cultural and political life of the country, where it is used to shape public opinion and organize social movements. This represents a far more profound societal impact than simple user statistics can convey.
1.3 The Digital Foundation: Sizing the Addressable Market
The remarkable market penetration of ChatGPT in Nepal must be understood within the context of the nation’s overall digital infrastructure. The data reveals a fundamental constraint that defines the absolute ceiling for the platform’s growth: a significant portion of the population remains entirely disconnected from the digital world.
As of early 2025, Nepal is home to 16.5 million internet users.”
This figure corresponds to an internet penetration rate of 55.8% of the total population. While this represents a majority, the inverse is just as critical: 13.1 million people, or 44.2% of the population, did not use the internet at the start of the year. This offline population constitutes a hard barrier, defining the Total Addressable Market (TAM) for any internet-based service, including ChatGPT. No matter how popular or useful the tool becomes, its reach is fundamentally limited to the connected portion of the country.
Data on mobile connections can be misleading if not carefully interpreted. While there were 39.0 million cellular mobile connections in Nepal in early 2025—equivalent to 132% of the population—this number is inflated by individuals holding multiple SIMs and does not directly correlate to internet access. A more telling statistic is that while 80.5% of these connections are considered “broadband” (3G, 4G, or 5G), many may only be used for basic voice and SMS services. The 16.5 million active internet users remains the most reliable figure for the addressable market.
The 55.8% penetration rate is more than a market statistic; it is the single most significant structural impediment to ChatGPT’s future growth and, more importantly, to the equitable distribution of AI’s potential benefits across Nepali society. This digital divide effectively cleaves the nation into two tiers. The first is a digitally connected population, concentrated in urban areas, that can access and leverage powerful AI tools for education, economic opportunity, and personal advancement. The second is a disconnected population, predominantly rural, that is completely excluded from this technological revolution. This reality poses a direct challenge to the stated vision of national policy, which emphasizes inclusive AI development to “build a prosperous Nepal”. Instead of acting as a great equalizer, AI tools like ChatGPT risk becoming accelerants of inequality. They amplify the advantages already held by the connected, educated, and urban elite, while the offline population is left further behind, unable to access the very tools intended to foster national progress. This dynamic threatens to turn the digital divide into a permanent socio-economic chasm.
Table 2: Digital Landscape of Nepal (Early 2025)
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Total Population | 29.6 million |
| Internet Users | 16.5 million |
| Internet Penetration Rate | 55.8% |
| Offline Population | 13.1 million (44.2%) |
| Active Mobile Connections | 39.0 million |
| Active Social Media Users | 14.3 million |
Source: DataReportal
Section 2: Sector-Specific Adoption and Impact
This section transitions from the quantitative analysis of who is using ChatGPT to a qualitative examination of how they are using it. The analysis explores the platform’s application and impact across Nepal’s most critical sectors, revealing a pattern of nascent but promising adoption tempered by significant challenges and practical limitations.
2.1 The Double-Edged Sword in Education
The education sector is arguably where ChatGPT has made its most visible and profound impact in Nepal, sparking a vibrant academic discourse and generating a complex, often contradictory, set of outcomes. Multiple studies focusing on Nepali students and teachers reveal that the tool is simultaneously viewed as a powerful educational aid and a significant threat to academic integrity.
On one hand, both students and educators perceive ChatGPT as a valuable and accessible tool. Research conducted with Nepali undergraduate and secondary school students consistently finds that they consider the platform easy to use and highly beneficial for a range of academic tasks. These include idea generation and brainstorming, rephrasing complex passages into clearer language, correcting grammatical errors, and enhancing English vocabulary. Teachers, in turn, recognize its potential for creating personalized learning experiences and for deepening classroom instruction by serving as a dynamic resource for students. In a national context marked by a scarcity of qualified educators, particularly in remote regions, some experts propose that ChatGPT could function as a “virtual teaching assistant,” helping to bridge resource gaps and support both students and faculty.
On the other hand, this enthusiasm is matched by significant and widespread concern. The very same studies that highlight the benefits also raise alarms about the tool’s potential downsides. The most frequently cited challenges are the risk of students developing an over-reliance on the technology, the consequent erosion of their critical thinking and creative abilities, and the high potential for academic dishonesty through plagiarism. This sentiment is captured by academic critics like Lamichhane, who argues that unchecked use of such tools “democratiz[es] copying and pasting over critical analysis,” fundamentally undermining the learning process. These pervasive concerns have led to urgent calls from within the academic community for the development of clear ethical guidelines and the implementation of comprehensive teacher training programs to ensure responsible integration of AI in the classroom.
The impact of ChatGPT on the Nepali education system is not uniform; rather, it appears to function as a magnifier of pre-existing inequalities. The educational landscape in Nepal is characterized by a significant resource disparity between well-funded urban schools and their under-resourced rural counterparts. The effective use of ChatGPT as a supplementary learning tool—one that fosters creativity and deepens understanding—requires a supportive environment. This includes guidance from trained teachers, a strong emphasis on academic integrity, and the cultivation of critical thinking skills to evaluate and build upon AI-generated content. These mitigating factors are far more likely to be present in well-resourced urban institutions. Conversely, in under-resourced schools with overburdened teachers and less academic oversight, ChatGPT is more likely to be used as a simple shortcut or a crutch for completing assignments. In this context, the tool, which has the potential to bridge educational gaps, could instead end up degrading learning outcomes for the most vulnerable students and deepening the very educational divide it promised to narrow.
Table 3: SWOT Analysis of ChatGPT Adoption in Nepali Education
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
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| Opportunities | Threats |
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2.2 The Nascent Economic Transformation
Beyond education, ChatGPT and other generative AI tools are beginning to make inroads into Nepal’s key economic sectors. However, the current impact is characterized more by future potential and individual-level productivity gains than by widespread, systemic transformation. Much of the discourse surrounding AI’s economic role in Nepal remains aspirational, focused on what could be achieved with broader adoption and deeper integration.
In agriculture, which forms the backbone of the Nepali economy, AI holds immense promise. Experts envision tools like ChatGPT revolutionizing farming practices by providing smallholder farmers with instant, accessible advice on critical issues such as pest control, crop management, irrigation schedules, and adapting to weather patterns. This could bridge a significant information gap that currently limits productivity, particularly in remote areas.
In the burgeoning e-commerce and business sectors, new AI features could be a catalyst for change. The integration of capabilities like OpenAI’s “Instant Checkout” within the chat interface has the potential to restructure consumer behavior and motivate Nepali online businesses to adopt conversational commerce to remain competitive. The open-source nature of the underlying protocols also creates opportunities for local developers to build e-commerce solutions tailored to the specific needs of Nepali merchants and consumers. On a more fundamental level, businesses are exploring ChatGPT for customer service automation, where it can handle basic queries, provide product information, and assist with purchases, thereby improving efficiency.
Other sectors are also seeing gradual integration.
The financial services industry, particularly banking, is adopting AI for customer-facing chatbots and for internal processes like fraud detection. In healthcare, the primary potential lies in using AI to disseminate basic health information, provide symptom guidance, and assist with appointment scheduling, which could be particularly impactful for improving healthcare access in remote communities. Even journalism is being affected, with Nepali newsrooms increasingly utilizing AI-powered tools for routine tasks like translation, transcription, and initial content verification, although challenges related to AI literacy and a reliance on foreign-developed models persist.
While the long-term vision for AI in Nepal involves the top-down transformation of these entire sectors, the immediate, tangible economic impact is occurring at a much more granular, individual level. The documented user base is large and active, particularly among students and young professionals. Their primary use cases—writing assistance, idea generation, and learning support—are fundamentally tasks of individual productivity. These same activities, such as content creation, coding assistance, and professional communication (e.g., writing emails and reports), are central to the work of freelancers, developers, marketers, and small business owners. Therefore, the most significant economic effect of ChatGPT in Nepal today is not a strategic, industry-wide revolution. Rather, it is the aggregated sum of millions of small efficiency gains achieved by individual users. This bottom-up boost in micro-productivity is the real, current economic story of ChatGPT in the country.
2.3 Business Integration and Service Availability
The commercial availability of ChatGPT’s premium features in Nepal presents a mixed picture, highlighting both a willingness from OpenAI to serve the market and significant friction in the service delivery pipeline. OpenAI has officially made its low-cost subscription plan, ChatGPT Go, available to users in Nepal, signaling the market’s inclusion in its global expansion strategy. This plan offers users extended access to more powerful models and features beyond the free tier.
However, this availability comes with a crucial and revealing restriction: ChatGPT Go subscriptions are not currently available for purchase through the iOS application in Nepal. While web and Android-based subscriptions remain accessible, the exclusion of the Apple App Store points to a complex and likely fragmented landscape for payment processing, regulatory compliance, or commercial agreements specific to that platform within the country. This limitation complicates access for a significant segment of the user base.
In response to these official channel limitations and the broader challenges with international payments, a local grey market has emerged to meet user demand. Third-party vendors, such as the online platform Toolsmandu, actively market and sell subscriptions for ChatGPT Plus. They offer various packages, including shared and private accounts, providing a workaround for users who are unable or unwilling to navigate the complexities of direct international payments. While these services fill a clear market gap, they also introduce potential security and privacy risks for users who must share account credentials or rely on an intermediary.
The existence and active marketing of these third-party subscription sellers is a powerful market signal. Such grey markets only thrive under a specific set of conditions: high consumer demand for a product, an inability for a significant portion of consumers to access it through official channels, and a willingness among those consumers to accept higher costs or increased risks to gain access. The Toolsmandu example is therefore more than an anecdote; it is tangible evidence of a commercially significant, underserved segment of the Nepali market. It demonstrates that there is substantial unmet demand for premium AI features from users who have the willingness and capacity to pay but are currently blocked by systemic payment friction. This represents a market failure where the official channels are unable to adequately capture the existing demand, creating an opportunity for unofficial intermediaries to profit.
Section 3: The Ecosystem: Enablers and Barriers
This section analyzes the foundational factors that either support or hinder the growth and effective utilization of ChatGPT in Nepal. It examines the critical role of native language support, the significant bottleneck created by payment system challenges, and the vibrant, bottom-up momentum of the local AI community.
3.1 Bridging the Language Gap: The Nepali Language Enabler
A critical factor enabling the mass adoption and democratization of ChatGPT in Nepal is its official and increasingly sophisticated support for the Nepali language. OpenAI includes Nepali in its list of over 80 languages supported by the platform, a foundational step that makes the technology accessible beyond the English-speaking elite.
This support extends beyond simple text-based interaction. The recent introduction of voice chat capabilities in Nepali represents a major leap forward in accessibility and usability. Leveraging OpenAI’s powerful Whisper model for speech-to-text transcription and advanced Text-to-Speech (TTS) models for generating audible responses, this feature allows for a more natural and intuitive form of human-AI interaction. Users can now speak to the application in their native tongue and receive a spoken response, significantly lowering the barrier to entry for individuals who may have lower literacy levels or are less comfortable with typing.
This technological enablement from OpenAI is complemented by a growing academic and research focus within Nepal on improving AI’s performance in the local language. For instance, research is being conducted on the application of Generative AI for complex Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks like Nepali Named Entity Recognition (NER), which is crucial for the AI to understand the context of local names, places, and organizations. This local effort to refine and enhance AI’s linguistic capabilities further strengthens its utility for the Nepali user base.
The provision of native language support is one of the most powerful and direct countermeasures to the digital divide. A primary component of digital exclusion in many developing nations is the language barrier, where essential digital services are often designed with an English-first approach, marginalizing large segments of the population. By offering full-fledged text and voice support in Nepali, ChatGPT effectively removes the prerequisite of English proficiency to access a world-class AI tool. This single feature has the potential to onboard a new wave of users from more diverse linguistic and educational backgrounds, directly addressing a core component of digital inequality and aligning with the inclusive goals of Nepal’s National AI Policy.
3.2 The Payment Gateway Problem: A Critical Bottleneck
While language support has been a powerful enabler, the most significant barrier to the professional and commercial adoption of ChatGPT in Nepal is the systemic difficulty in paying for premium services. This “payment gateway problem” is a multifaceted issue that acts as a critical bottleneck, preventing users from accessing the platform’s most powerful features and hindering the development of a local AI-driven economy.
Globally, a high percentage of international users—estimated at 34%—experience payment failures when attempting to subscribe to services like ChatGPT Plus. These failures stem from several interconnected issues. First, card declines are frequent. Banks in Nepal, like those in many regions, employ strict security protocols and fraud detection algorithms that often flag international, recurring digital service payments as suspicious. Issues with implementing or verifying 3D Secure authentication, a standard security protocol, are a common point of failure.
Second, the payment processor used by OpenAI, Stripe, employs its own layers of security that can inadvertently block legitimate transactions. One such measure is Bank Identification Number (BIN) filtering, where ranges of card numbers associated with high chargeback rates or fraudulent activity are automatically rejected. This system can unintentionally blacklist cards from entire Nepali financial institutions, causing transactions to fail at the pre-authorization stage before they even reach the user’s bank for approval.
Finally, these international issues are compounded by the state of Nepal’s own domestic digital payment ecosystem. The local landscape is characterized by interoperability challenges between different payment platforms, persistent cybersecurity concerns, and a lingering cultural and behavioral preference for cash transactions, especially outside of major urban centers. This underdeveloped infrastructure makes seamless, reliable international digital payments a significant challenge for the average user.
This payment problem is far more than a mere inconvenience for individual users. It functions as a fundamental brake on Nepal’s ability to integrate into the global digital economy. Access to the most advanced AI capabilities—such as the latest models (e.g., GPT-5), advanced data analysis tools, and higher usage limits—is locked behind a paywall. The systemic friction in the payment process means that a large portion of Nepal’s professional class, including developers, researchers, entrepreneurs, and businesses, are effectively relegated to using the free, less capable versions of these world-class tools. In a global economy where AI is rapidly becoming a key driver of productivity and innovation, this lack of access is not just a product issue; it is a significant economic handicap.
It places the entire Nepali knowledge workforce at a competitive disadvantage relative to their international peers who have seamless access, thereby capping the potential for high-value AI utilization and innovation within the country.
3.3 The Growing Local AI Community: A Bottom-Up Momentum
Despite the top-down challenges of infrastructure and policy, Nepal is home to a burgeoning and energetic grassroots AI ecosystem. This bottom-up momentum, driven by passionate individuals, academic institutions, and private organizations, demonstrates a strong domestic appetite for AI innovation and knowledge sharing.
Central to this ecosystem is the AI Association Nepal. This organization serves as a crucial hub, with a stated mission to foster innovation, collaboration, and the ethical advancement of AI in the country. It actively engages the community through workshops, training programs, and policy advocacy, aiming to build a robust local talent pipeline and connect researchers, professionals, and enthusiasts.
The vibrancy of this community is most evident in the dense calendar of AI-related events held across the country. Throughout 2025 and 2026, dozens of international conferences, workshops, and symposiums focusing on artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, and robotics are scheduled in key cities such as Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Pokhara, and Bharatpur. This high frequency of events indicates a strong and active network of academics and professionals dedicated to advancing the field within Nepal.
The community also has a growing online presence. While official OpenAI forums are primarily geared towards developers discussing technical API-related topics, a more accessible, local-language community is forming on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. Channels such as “Technology Channel Nepal” provide tutorials and guides on AI tools in the Nepali language, democratizing knowledge and catering to a broader audience that may not engage with English-language technical forums.
However, a significant disconnect exists between the dynamic, self-starting energy of this local AI community and the slow, uncertain implementation of the national AI strategy. The ecosystem is clearly evolving from the bottom up, propelled by the initiative of its members rather than being guided by a coherent, well-funded national vision. On one hand, the calendar is filled with events and the AI Association is actively trying to build capacity. On the other hand, expert analysis of the National AI Policy consistently criticizes its lack of a practical implementation roadmap and its failure to address foundational infrastructural problems.
This juxtaposition reveals two parallel tracks operating at different speeds: a fast-moving, agile community of practitioners and a slow-moving, bureaucratic policy apparatus. The implication is that while the passion, talent, and interest to build a thriving AI sector exist within Nepal, this potential may be constrained without strategic government support. The community, on its own, cannot solve the large-scale problems of internet infrastructure, payment gateways, and nationwide digital literacy. Without a bridge between the policy’s vision and the community’s energy, the nation risks failing to capitalize on its homegrown talent.
Section 4: Governance, Ethics, and the National Strategy
This section critically examines the top-down response to the AI revolution in Nepal, focusing on the nation’s formal policy framework, the broader public discourse surrounding AI ethics, and the central, cross-cutting challenge of the digital divide.
4.1 Nepal’s National AI Policy: Vision vs. Reality
In a landmark move, the Government of Nepal officially approved its first National AI Policy in August 2025, signaling a formal commitment to navigating the opportunities and challenges of the AI era. The policy has been largely welcomed by experts and industry bodies as a timely and positive step forward.
The vision articulated in the policy is ambitious and commendable. It explicitly emphasizes the “inclusive” and “ethical” use of AI systems as a means to “build a prosperous Nepal”. The framework is built on several key pillars, including the establishment of robust AI governance, the development of human capital through education and upskilling, the promotion of research and innovation, strategic economic integration into key sectors like agriculture, health, and education, and the fostering of public-private partnerships. These objectives demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted approach required to harness AI for national development.
However, despite its strengths in vision and scope, critical analysis from multiple experts reveals a significant chasm between the policy’s stated goals and the practical realities of the country’s current capacity. The most persistent criticism is the document’s lack of a concrete, funded, and time-bound implementation roadmap. While it outlines what Nepal hopes to achieve, it provides little detail on how these goals will be met. Furthermore, analysts have identified other major gaps, including insufficient strategies for mitigating the inevitable job displacement caused by automation and a failure to adequately address the country’s severe infrastructural limitations and the profound digital divide. Consequently, many of the policy’s specific provisions, such as a plan for nationwide AI training for all teachers, have been deemed “impractical” and overly ambitious given the current financial and logistical constraints.
This gap between ambition and execution creates a significant risk that the National AI Policy may function primarily as a “performative” document. It successfully signals modernity and forward-thinking intent to the international community and domestic stakeholders, using all the appropriate terminology of ethical and inclusive AI. However, without a realistic and adequately funded plan to address the foundational challenges—most notably the 44.2% of the population that remains offline—the policy’s transformative potential is severely limited. There is a danger that it will become another well-intentioned framework that exists only on paper, while the difficult, unglamorous work of building digital infrastructure and fostering widespread digital literacy, the essential prerequisites for any successful AI strategy, remains under-resourced and unaddressed.
Table 4: Critical Analysis of Nepal’s National AI Policy 2025
AI Governance
Stated Objective: Establish institutional, legal, and regulatory frameworks for responsible, ethical, and transparent AI use.
Expert-Cited Strengths:
- Clear vision for ethical governance.
- Acknowledges need for standards and accountability.
Expert-Cited Weaknesses / Gaps:
- Lack of a clear implementation roadmap.
- Outdated data governance laws.
- Risks being impractical without enforcement mechanisms.
Human Capital Development
Stated Objective: Build skilled human resources by integrating AI into curricula and supporting upskilling initiatives.
Expert-Cited Strengths:
- Focus on skill development from school to university level.
- Emphasis on awareness programs for diverse populations.
Expert-Cited Weaknesses / Gaps:
- Nationwide teacher training deemed “impractical” due to resource constraints.
- Shortage of skilled AI professionals persists as a major challenge.
Research & Innovation
Stated Objective: Foster a domestic AI ecosystem by encouraging robust investment in R&D and entrepreneurship.
- Promotion of AI research and entrepreneurship.
- Provisions for investment promotion and financial facilitation.
Expert-Cited Weaknesses / Gaps:
- Limited data availability and accessibility hinders R&D.
- Heavy reliance on foreign-developed AI models.
Economic & Social Integration
Stated Objective: Strategically integrate AI into key sectors (health, education, agriculture) to drive national development.
Expert-Cited Strengths:
- Sector-focused approach tailored to Nepal’s context.
- Aims to enhance public service delivery.
Expert-Cited Weaknesses / Gaps:
- Fails to adequately address the foundational digital divide, risking deeper inequality.
- Insufficient strategies for mitigating AI-driven job displacement.
Infrastructure
Stated Objective: Expand high-speed internet and build international-level data centers and cloud infrastructure.
Expert-Cited Strengths:
- Acknowledges the need for 5G, optical fiber, and data centers.
Expert-Cited Weaknesses / Gaps:
- Poor digital infrastructure remains a key implementation challenge and a major threat to policy success.
4.2 Public Sentiment and Ethical Crossroads
Public perception of AI in Nepal is a complex mixture of widespread enthusiasm, particularly among the youth, and deep-seated concerns about its potential for misuse and its societal implications. The rapid, near-ubiquitous adoption of ChatGPT signals a general optimism and curiosity about the technology’s capabilities. It is seen as a tool for learning, productivity, and accessing information, driving its integration into the daily lives of millions.
However, this optimism is tempered by the stark reality of AI’s potential to be used for malicious purposes. A pivotal case study is the role of AI and fake accounts during the “Gen Z uprising” of September 2025. An analysis of the online discourse surrounding the protests concluded that nearly 34% of the activity on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) was driven by fake accounts and AI-generated content. These accounts were not passive; they actively engaged in the conversation, amplifying certain narratives and shaping public sentiment. AI-generated visuals were used in promotional materials to create an idealized image of an organized movement, boosting engagement and emotional appeal before the protests even began.
This event serves as a powerful demonstration of AI operating as an unregulated and influential actor in Nepal’s political landscape.
While the government’s policy focus is largely on the economic and developmental applications of AI in sectors like agriculture and healthcare, this case reveals that AI’s most immediate and disruptive impact may be in the socio-political sphere. The strategic use of AI-driven disinformation to create confusion, foster polarization, and manipulate public debate presents a clear and present threat to social cohesion and democratic processes. This has led to calls from civil society and policy analysts for a more human-centered approach to AI governance, one that prioritizes the protection of fundamental rights, safeguards against bias and discrimination, and establishes clear accountability for the misuse of AI systems.
The Gen Z protest highlights a potential blind spot in the current national strategy. The government is focused on drafting policies for the planned, orderly integration of AI into the formal economy. Meanwhile, powerful, globally accessible AI tools are already being deployed on the ground to actively shape public discourse and social mobilization in ways that are difficult to trace, attribute, or control. This underscores the urgent need for the governance framework to expand beyond economic development and address the profound challenges AI poses to the integrity of the information ecosystem and the stability of the political landscape.
Navigating the Digital Divide: The Central Challenge
The digital divide in Nepal is not merely one challenge among many; it is the central, cross-cutting issue that underpins and exacerbates nearly every other barrier to effective AI adoption. It is the foundational problem that impacts everything from market size and user access to educational equity and the viability of the national AI strategy itself.
This divide is a multifaceted problem with deep roots. It encompasses:
- Inadequate Infrastructure: Despite progress, many parts of the country, particularly rural and remote areas, still suffer from unreliable internet connectivity and a lack of high-performance computing capabilities.
- Shortage of Skilled Professionals: There is a recognized lack of a skilled workforce with expertise in AI development, deployment, and management, which hinders both domestic innovation and the effective adoption of foreign technologies.
- Low Digital and AI Literacy: A significant portion of the population lacks the basic digital skills and critical understanding necessary to use AI tools effectively and safely. This is a key implementation challenge acknowledged within the National AI Policy itself.
- Socio-economic Barriers: Access to the internet and the devices required to use it (smartphones, computers) is still a luxury for many, creating a barrier that disproportionately affects lower-income households and marginalized communities.
This pervasive divide is the primary reason that the inclusive vision of the National AI Policy is at risk of failure. As critics have pointed out, without a concerted and massive effort to address these foundational issues, the benefits of AI will inevitably flow to the “already connected, urban, and digitally literate populations”. This will not only leave the disconnected half of the country behind but will actively worsen existing inequalities. The digital divide, therefore, must be seen as the prerequisite challenge that needs to be addressed before the more ambitious goals of an AI-driven transformation can be realistically pursued.
Strategic Outlook and Recommendations
This concluding section synthesizes the report’s analysis into a forward-looking outlook on the future of ChatGPT and generative AI in Nepal. It outlines potential growth trajectories and provides a set of actionable, stakeholder-specific recommendations designed to mitigate the identified challenges and maximize the technology’s potential for equitable national development.
Future Growth Trajectories
The future growth of ChatGPT usage in Nepal is likely to follow a dual-track trajectory, heavily dependent on whether foundational infrastructural barriers are addressed.
- Short-Term Outlook (1-3 Years): In the immediate future, user growth will likely continue its upward trend, but primarily within the existing digitally connected segment of the population. This growth will be driven by the introduction of new features by OpenAI, increasing general awareness of AI’s capabilities, and its further integration into academic and professional workflows. However, this growth will inevitably begin to plateau as it approaches the saturation point of the 55.8% of the population with internet access. The Total Addressable Market is, for now, capped. Simultaneously, the monetization of the user base through premium subscriptions will remain stunted and inefficient as long as the systemic payment gateway problems persist. The grey market will continue to thrive, but official revenue generation from Nepal will be below its potential.
- Long-Term Outlook (3+ Years): Significant, transformative long-term growth is entirely contingent on successfully addressing the digital divide. The pathway to unlocking the other 44% of the potential market and achieving the inclusive vision of the National AI Policy runs directly through concerted national efforts to expand affordable internet access and implement widespread digital literacy programs. Without such a commitment, ChatGPT will remain a tool for the privileged half of the country, and its national impact will be permanently limited. If, however, these foundational challenges are met, the potential for growth is immense, with AI having the capacity to become a truly democratized tool for education, economic participation, and public service access for all Nepalis.
Recommendations for Stakeholders
To navigate this complex landscape, a coordinated effort from all key stakeholders is required. The following recommendations are proposed:
For Policymakers (Government of Nepal)
- Develop a Funded Implementation Roadmap: The highest priority must be to translate the visionary National AI Policy into a practical, funded, and time-bound Implementation Roadmap. This roadmap must include clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), budgetary allocations, and departmental responsibilities for each stated objective.
- Prioritize Foundational Infrastructure: Shift the strategic focus from high-level AI applications to the foundational prerequisites. National investment and policy initiatives must prioritize the expansion of reliable and affordable internet infrastructure and the rollout of national digital literacy programs. These should be treated as the essential groundwork for any successful AI strategy.
- Resolve the Payment Gateway Bottleneck: Actively engage with international payment processors like Stripe, card networks (Visa, Mastercard), and regional financial bodies to diagnose and resolve the systemic issues causing payment failures. This may involve updating national banking regulations, streamlining compliance procedures for digital services, and advocating for the removal of Nepali BINs from processor blocklists.
- Govern AI’s Socio-Political Impact: Expand the scope of the AI policy and regulatory oversight beyond economic sectors to include robust governance for AI’s role in political discourse and social media. This should involve developing frameworks to combat AI-driven disinformation, ensuring transparency in algorithmic content promotion, and establishing clear lines of accountability for the malicious use of AI tools to manipulate public opinion.
For Businesses and Entrepreneurs
- Focus on Internal Micro-Productivity: In the short term, businesses should focus on leveraging ChatGPT and similar tools to improve internal efficiency. Applications in content creation, marketing copy, software development, customer communication, and internal training can yield immediate productivity gains without requiring large-scale systemic changes.
- Develop Localized AI Solutions: Entrepreneurs and developers should capitalize on opportunities to build localized AI solutions that cater specifically to the Nepali market. Leveraging open-source protocols, such as those for conversational commerce, to create tools that work in the Nepali language and integrate with local payment systems can create a competitive advantage.
- Advocate for a Better Ecosystem: Collaborate through industry bodies like the AI Association Nepal to collectively lobby the government for improved digital infrastructure, a more favorable regulatory environment for tech startups, and a resolution to the international payment issues that hinder access to essential digital tools.
For the Education Sector
- Mandate a National AI Literacy Curriculum: Develop and mandate a national curriculum on digital and AI literacy that is integrated at all levels of education. This curriculum should move beyond basic technical skills to focus on ethical use, critical thinking, source verification, and understanding the potential for algorithmic bias.
- Invest in Comprehensive Teacher Training: A policy for AI in schools is ineffective without trained educators. A realistic, phased, and well-funded teacher training program is essential to equip educators with the pedagogical skills needed to guide students in using AI tools responsibly and effectively as a supplement to, not a replacement for, genuine learning.
- Establish Clear Institutional Policies on Academic Integrity: Every educational institution, from secondary schools to universities, must establish and rigorously enforce clear, updated policies on the use of generative AI in academic work.
These policies should define acceptable use cases (e.g., brainstorming, grammar checking) and explicitly prohibit plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty, with clear consequences for violations.
