Industry Leaders Spotlight AI’s Transformative Power in India

At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, tech giants engaged in fireside chats exploring AI’s profound impact across sectors like telecommunications, governance, healthcare, education, and digital infrastructure.
Bharti Airtel Founder and Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal and Adobe Chairman and CEO
Shantanu Narayen discussed AI’s centrality to enterprise operations. Mittal noted, “AI is
becoming a truly integral part of how we operate, serve customers, build networks, and
manage them.” Narayen highlighted India’s opportunity to lead on data privacy, security, and trust, stating, “India can play a leadership role… in how we think about data, privacy, security, and trust.”
Infosys Co-founder and Chairman Nandan Nilekani and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei
addressed AI’s rapid evolution and population-scale diffusion. Amodei emphasized Global
South benefits: “The benefits of AI may be even larger than anywhere else, but that makes it even more important that we get safety, democratic governance, and economic inclusion
right.” They tackled risks like economic displacement and the need for meaningful use cases to build public support.
Meta’s Yann LeCun, in conversation with India Today’s Marya Shakil, reframed AI as
amplifying human intelligence rather than surpassing it, likening it to “the new printing press” for knowledge dissemination. He predicted India’s youth-driven innovation: “Long-term, innovation comes from countries with favorable demographics… India and Africa.” LeCun stressed education’s criticality in the AI era.
Leaders affirmed India’s unique positioning, with scale, demographics, and ambition, to
shape global AI standards and drive inclusive, human-centric innovation for societal good.