'India likely to see one of world's largest AI user bases'

New Delhi: AI must remain open, trusted, and globally accessible rather than concentrated in a few hands, industry leaders said at the India AI Impact Summit, highlighting India's potential role in shaping global AI norms.

Sunil Mittal, founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, said AI is already becoming central to telecom operations. "From our company's standpoint, AI is becoming a really integral part of how we operate, serve customers, and build our networks," he said, adding that sectors such as healthcare, education, and medical sciences "will flourish on the back of this."


Shantanu Narayen, chairman and CEO of Adobe, said India is likely to see one of the world's largest AI user bases. "Given that the number of people using AI in India will be greater than anywhere else in the world in a few years, the leadership role India can play - not just in what these models mean, but in how we think about data, privacy, security, and trust - is significant," he said.

A key concern, Narayen added, is authenticity in the age of generative AI. "I want every piece of information that's produced to carry provenance and a watermark so that people can clearly distinguish what is real from what is fake," he said.