AI 'Once In A Generation Opportunity' For India, Says Microsoft India CTO

The rapidly developing technology of artificial intelligence provides "once in a generation opportunity" for a country like India to boost innovation, said Dr Rohini Srivathsa, chief technology officer of Microsoft India and South Asia.

"It is a once in a generation opportunity for India for inclusive and sustainable growth," Srivathsa said on Tuesday, while speaking at the NDTV World Summit.

The agility and speed at which innovation could happen will be immense with the wide-scale adoption of AI, she said, adding that the kind of accessibility that can be enabled will be "unprecedented".

India is poised to benefit from AI due to the advancements made in the country's digital public infrastructure over the past several years. "AI will really exponentially impact the DPIs," she said.

India, being a cradle of talent, should benefit from the advancements in artificial intelligence, according to Saurabh Sahu, managing director and lead for India business at Accenture.

A big component of 'Atmanirbhar Bharat', or the self-reliant India campaign of the government, depends on the usage of AI, Sahu said. "But the use of AI should be responsible," he underlined.

While AI will impact all the sectors of Indian economy, the ones that will be the most influenced are healthcare and education, the experts who spoke at the summit said.

"Healthcare and education are two sectors where AI will be doing things that were thought impossible earlier," Srivathsa said.

"It is impossible for a doctor to keep up with all things happening related to a particular disease in all parts of the world. Imagine a doctor has an AI assistant that tells the doctors about even the rarest case that took place in a remote corner of the world," she said.

Similarly, in education, AI can help India "celebrate its diversity of languages" as it allows seamless translation. This can help students learn significantly in their native languages, she pointed out.

According to Sahu, AI is already bringing in efficiency in the discharge of several services. The customer support system for food delivery companies and banks is enabled with the technology, he said.

EssentialAI Co-Founder Niki Parmar said AI currently has the biggest impact on coding in the tech sector. "Grunt work is being impacted by AI today," she added.

In the future, however, "we will have a phenomenon where AI will learn from the experts", Parmar said. Consequently, AI will shell out advice as experts do, she pointed out.

Going ahead, it is expected that AI will directly learn from the users, who can be biologists, teachers and bankers and other sectoral experts. This will allow the AI model to learn the nuances related to several subjects, Parmar said.