AI is helping India tackle challenges from crop losses to TB screening, but automation could put some service-sector jobs at risk….reports Asian Lite News Desk
India is emerging as a major testing ground for practical and relatively low-cost applications of artificial intelligence, with the technology being used across agriculture, healthcare and public services, according to the World Bank’s World Development Report 2026.
The report highlighted several Indian examples where AI is being used to address everyday challenges, while cautioning that the technology could also put pressure on employment in sectors such as business-process outsourcing, call centres and entry-level technology services.
In Telangana, an AI-based weather forecasting system has helped small farmers adjust their decisions based on specific weather risks. The World Bank said some farmers increased spending on their farms by as much as one-third, while others recorded net savings of up to $560 per farmer.
Agriculture has emerged as one of the strongest examples of AI’s potential in India. Ama Krushi, launched in Odisha in 2018 and now operating as Krushi Samruddhi, provides farmers with AI-powered advisory services.
The programme grew from around three million farmers when it came under government ownership in 2022 to more than seven million. A 2025 evaluation found that the service improved farming practices, increased harvests and reduced severe crop losses, with benefit-cost ratios ranging from 9:1 to 15:1.
Another initiative, Kisan e-Mitra, uses an AI-powered chatbot to provide agricultural grievance-related assistance in 11 Indic languages. The World Bank said the system handled around 2.7 million queries within 186 days of advanced AI capabilities being added, almost seven times the volume that traditional manual processing could have handled.
AI is also being used to expand healthcare screening in India, particularly where specialist medical services are limited.
Cough Against TB, developed by Wadhwani AI in partnership with India’s Central Tuberculosis Division, uses cough sounds to identify people who may require confirmatory tuberculosis testing. The system correctly flagged nine out of 10 people who needed further testing, according to the report.
A Government of India assessment in Maharashtra also found that computer-aided detection was more accurate and less expensive than radiologist readings when screening X-ray images for tuberculosis. Tamil Nadu, meanwhile, has introduced large-scale AI screening for diabetic retinopathy, a major cause of preventable blindness.
The World Bank said developing economies could have more to gain and less to fear from AI than wealthier countries. Fewer than one in 10 jobs in developing economies are considered susceptible to AI automation, compared with more than one-third in high-income countries.
However, the report warned that AI could undermine an important route into middle-class employment by automating call-centre work and entry-level jobs in software, finance and business services.
It noted that AI had already demonstrated its ability to perform tasks previously handled by customer-service workers at an Indian business-process outsourcing company, highlighting how the technology could complement workers in some settings while replacing them in others.
India is also seeking to develop AI systems suited to its own languages and conditions. Under the IndiaAI Mission, Sarvam AI was selected to develop domestic AI models, including models with 30 billion and 105 billion parameters trained entirely in India, the report said.
The World Bank also cited India’s Unified Payments Interface as an example of digital public infrastructure that can support AI adoption and innovation by allowing banks, fintech companies and payment applications to operate through a common underlying system.
The report urged developing countries to focus primarily on adopting existing AI technologies, adapting them to local needs and building domestic capabilities where resources allow.
It also pointed to the potential of smaller AI systems that can operate offline on phones and laptops or be accessed through voice calls and text messages, particularly in areas with unreliable electricity or internet connectivity.
The World Development Report 2026 is the World Bank’s first comprehensive assessment of AI’s implications for developing economies. It said AI could help developing countries achieve in a decade progress that might otherwise take a century, but stressed that this would depend on reliable electricity, affordable internet, skilled workers, local-language data and safeguards against bias and misinformation.
