India’s digital landscape in 2025 was dominated by artificial intelligence (AI), as per Google’s Year in Search report. Within this realm, Gemini emerged as the most sought-after AI tool in the country, surpassing ChatGPT in search popularity. This trend indicates a shift in Indian users’ behavior towards exploring new AI platforms for both creative endeavors and productivity, illustrating a move from casual interest to daily integration.
Gemini’s prominence is evident from being the second most trending search in 2025, following closely behind the Indian Premier League. The tool’s influence extended to various aspects of digital culture, from fueling trends like “Nano Banana” to enabling viral 3D and saree transformation edits through its 2.5 Flash Image model.
Apart from Gemini, India displayed a keen interest in a diverse array of AI platforms beyond Google’s offerings. Tools such as Grok, Perplexity, DeepSeek, and Google AI Studio garnered significant attention, each catering to different needs – Grok for humor-infused chat, Perplexity for search-style responses, and DeepSeek for creative image generation.
Throughout the year, Indians explored a wide spectrum of AI assistants, editors, and generators, embracing AI as a daily companion for learning, creating, and accomplishing tasks. This shift towards AI integration was evident in the transformation of social feeds through trends like Nano Banana, where users crafted stylized caricatures and hyperreal portraits using Gemini’s image models.
Additionally, India’s engagement with AI extended beyond productivity to embrace artistic expression, with AI-powered tools facilitating the creation of 3D figurines and hyperreal portraits. Notably, Grok, integrated within X (formerly Twitter), gained traction for its sarcastic tone and contextual relevance, setting it apart from its competitors.
While OpenAI’s ChatGPT remained widely used, newer and lighter AI models stole the spotlight in 2025, promising enhanced experiences. This democratization of AI tools spanned various sectors, including research, entertainment, design, and meme creation, showcasing the versatility and adaptability of AI technology.
The surge in AI-related searches reflects Indians’ rapid adoption of emerging technologies, from students seeking assistance in essay writing to entrepreneurs using AI for business insights. In a year dominated by cricket, cinema, and culture, AI carved a niche in the nation’s curiosity, shaping everyday life and blurring the lines between human creativity and machine assistance.
Google’s Year in Search 2025 highlights India’s exploration of artificial intelligence’s potential to revolutionize daily experiences, marking a significant shift towards embracing AI in various facets of life.