Microsoft is doubling down on India's ambitions to become an AI powerhouse. During a visit to Mumbai this week, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella touted the software giant's industry-leading AI capabilities while announcing a major skilling initiative to prepare India's workforce for an AI-powered future.
Speaking at the Microsoft CEO Connection event, Nadella highlighted how solutions like Microsoft Copilot are already driving strong productivity gains for Indian organizations. Copilot uses generative AI to provide real-time suggestions to developers as they write code. Early adopters like IT services firm Infosys have rapidly rolled out Copilot to over 7,000 developers.
“We have the best model today … even with all the hoopla, one year after, GPT4 is better. We are waiting for the competition to arrive. It will arrive, I’m sure, but the fact [is] that we have the most leading LLM out there.” - Satya Nadella
Axis Bank saw over 30% productivity jumps among 300 Copilot users - completing tasks faster and with higher quality. And annual report analysis that once took days can now be done in hours thanks to an Annual Report Copilot solution deployed at textiles manufacturer Arvind Limited.
These examples underscore how quickly India has moved to adopt AI. According to Nadella, Indian organizations are seeing a $3.86 return for every $1 invested in AI projects - over 6 times higher than the global average. More than 150 companies across agriculture, aviation, e-commerce and other sectors are already innovating with Azure OpenAI Service.
Homegrown innovators like ITC and Karya are also showcasing how India can tap AI's potential to drive both business and social impact. ITC built a multilingual chatbot helping farmers boost crop yields, while Karya enriches AI training data - and lives - by providing rural workers with fair wages and education.
Great to be in India this week meeting with changemakers like the team at Karya, who are doing the critical work of building high-quality datasets for AI—and expanding economic opportunity at the same time. https://t.co/jJUDjnBUEo
— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) February 7, 2024
Yet Nadella believes much more needs to be done to prepare India's workforce for an AI-powered economy. He announced Microsoft's ADVANTA(I)GE INDIA initiative, an ambitious effort that will provide 2 million Indians with AI skilling by 2025.
The program includes hands-on technical training for women in Tier 2/3 cities and basic AI literacy for 400,000 students, helping India build a more diverse and inclusive pipeline of AI talent. Microsoft is also teaming up with India's Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to equip 500,000 vocational students and job seekers with introductory and advanced AI skills.
"India has a huge opportunity to be a global leader in AI, and creating AI fluency at scale is a critical step in that journey," said Nadella. "This initiative aims to propel India into a promising era of AI fluency, empowering citizens across India with the right skills to thrive in the age of AI."
If successful, the skilling effort could go a long way towards helping Indian organizations maximize returns on their AI investments while also ensuring the broader population shares in the coming wave of AI-led growth rather than being left behind. And for Microsoft, it represents both a business opportunity and a chance to put its responsible AI principles into practice in one of its most strategic markets.