Closing the Adoption Gap: How AI Is Being Built in the Global South

The AI conversation is dominated by a preoccupation with frontier capabilities. Yet a more consequential challenge is the gap between what AI can do and what it is actually doing in the world. This adoption gap is particularly acute in the Global South, where AI is deployed amid resource constraints, limited state capacity, and fragile institutions. This report sets out to map these adoption challenges, in order to understand how AI can be better embedded into existing workflows and social structures. Drawing on interviews, surveys, and case studies, it builds this case through granular, ground-up evidence, pushing back against the abstraction that so often characterizes the field.