Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the landscape of several sectors, including education. The advent of ChatGPT has redefined the way students interact with technology for academic reasons. Though research on the adoption of this technology has been conducted across regions globally, research on ChatGPT adoption in remote locations in emerging markets is far from complete. The factors influencing adoption vary vastly across regions and cultures. Traditional technology adoption models may fail to comprehensively elucidate drivers of adoption in remote emerging markets. Being a collectivistic society, the role of social influence was found to play a vital role in delivering the confidence necessitated to adopt novel technologies. Thus, we test the role of social influence as a primary driver influencing self-efficacy; perceived critical mass and perceived enjoyment amalgamated in a unique constellation to evaluate the adoption of ChatGPT among graduate students in remote locations. The prominent results reflect confirmation of our hypotheses of association between social influence and self-efficacy and the role of critical mass on the adoption of ChatGPT which was untested before, thus contributing to the contextual advancement of technology adoption models.