New Delhi, Feb 17 Union Electronics and Information Technology Secretary, S. Krishnan, said on Tuesday that whether artificial intelligence (AI) succeeds beyond the hype depends entirely on whether it delivers solutions that improve lives.
Addressing the session titled "From Algorithms to Outcomes: Building AI that Works for People" on the second day of the 'India AI Impact Summit 2026' here, Krishnan said the India AI Mission is modelled to address diverse needs and real-world challenges.
"We are providing compute, models, and data for one reason only, to build applications with real impact. If you walk through the expo, you'll see hundreds of startups working across healthcare, agriculture, education, and manufacturing. That's where impact will come from," he told the gathering.
He also said that the governments will never have enough teachers, doctors, or judges, "but if AI can enhance productivity, service quality can improve dramatically."
"The challenge is to choose what works, scale it responsibly, protect privacy, and ensure public money creates measurable outcomes," Union Electronics and Information Technology Secretary added.
The high-impact session examined the dual imperatives of people-centric AI and sovereign technological capability.
It focused on ensuring that artificial intelligence systems translate into measurable improvements in public service delivery and citizen welfare.
According to the official statement, the discussion centred on how compute, models and data must ultimately lead to deployable applications that enhance productivity, strengthen governance and deliver tangible benefits to citizens.
Iqbal Singh Dhaliwal, Global Executive Director of The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), underscored the importance of rigorous evaluation, saying that "If you've spent enough time in development, you've seen many silver bullets come and go".
Michael Kremer, J-PAL, University Professor in Economics at University of Chicago, added, "We're seeing early evidence of impact in areas like traffic enforcement, automated driver's licence testing, health, and education, including personalised adaptive learning that doubled the pace of student learning with just one hour a week".
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