There are moments in history when invention meets intention-when technology doesn’t just advance but awakens. Artificial Intelligence stands at one such moment.
There is a lot of talk about algorithms, competition, and existential risk in boardrooms and on the news. But in addition to all the hype, a more important and quiet question is coming up: can AI help people thrive instead of just surviving? In February 2026, New Delhi will host the AI Impact Summit, which will look at how technology could change people’s lives, the environment, and progress. Instead of arguing about how machines can take over, the world will come together to talk about how they can heal, include, and lift people up.
The challenge is not just to make AI smarter, but also to make it ‘Jan AI’-people-centred, participatory, and purposeful. The seeds of that idea are already there. Doctors can find diseases early with the help of an AI-powered tool in a district hospital. A farmer in a small village uses an app that gets satellite data to predict when it will rain. A digital tutor explains a maths problem again in the child’s first language.
These aren’t stories about the future; they’re peeks into a present that is slowly changing through lines of code that aren’t visible and acts of kindness that are. AI now predicts cyclones before they strike, manages traffic to cut emissions, and tracks deforestation in real time. It helps cities breathe cleaner air and farmers grow more food. Yet beyond these applications lies something deeper-the democratisation of access. For the first time, intelligence itself can be shared. A voice assistant empowers a person with disability to access services. Once unattainable, an AI tool helps a rural business owner obtain credit. AI that is empathetically designed improves societies by making them more equitable in addition to making systems smarter.
The global AI map is still not level, though. Its centres of creation are concentrated in a few wealthy nations, trained on datasets that mirror privilege. When algorithms fail to understand Hindi or Swahili, or optimise farming for temperate climates, they reveal an uncomfortable truth: AI reflects the world that builds it.
To change that, the Global South must move from a testing ground to a co-author. Its languages, cultures, and lived realities hold both the data and the wisdom to make AI truly universal. The shift isn’t only moral; it’s practical. In the absence of diversity, intelligence is not intelligence but imitation. In this way, India embodies the world’s complexity and hope. With 1.4 billion people, hundreds of languages, and a digital revolution that is extending to even the most remote regions of the nation, India offers the ideal setting for inclusive innovation. The goal of the Government’s IndiaAI Mission is to make AI beneficial to all citizens, not just those with connections. Technology builds capability, but communication builds trust.
To make Jan AI real, we must translate the abstract into the accessible-turning algorithms into stories, data into dialogue, and ethics into everyday empathy. Just as Swachh Bharat turned cleanliness into a civic emotion and Digital India made technology a shared dream, Jan AI must become a people’s movement-a conversation that demystifies, decentralises, and democratises intelligence. Awareness campaigns can show how AI improves lives. Community radio, vernacular content, and local influencers can make it relatable. Storytelling in schools and skilling programmes can nurture curiosity and caution together. When citizens understand AI’s promise and pitfalls, they participate not out of fear but with a sense of ownership.
A movement like Jan AI cannot be top-down. It must be expressed in multiple languages, felt in daily interactions, and communicated through a range of media. By promoting ethical data sharing, influencing local applications, and demanding accountability, it should not only encourage citizens to use AI but also to co-create it. By presenting real-life examples of nurses, teachers, and farmers using AI for good, digital media, motion pictures, and popular culture can humanise these possibilities. Each story and creation acts as a spark for a wider awakening, showing how inclusivity can guide intelligence to become collective.
In a world anxious about what machines can do, the New Delhi Summit asks a different question: what can we do with them for each other? With empathy and inclusivity, technology cannot be the end of humanity’s story but rather the start of its next chapter. India’s leadership offers a chance to direct the world’s discourse. If the answer begins here, in the heart of the Global South, perhaps ‘Jan AI’ will usher in the era of Artificial Intelligence where the solution starts here, in the centre of the Global South. And perhaps, just possibly, the most human era will finally dawn, driven by dharma as well as data.
The writer is a former civil servant who writes on cinema and strategic communication. With inputs from Zoya Ahmad and Vaishnavie Srinivasan
