BENGALURU: Sarvam AI reached 45 million people in 10 days, across 28 states, via voice-based artificial intelligence (AI) for a large life insurance company, said co-founder Vivek Raghavan.
Speaking on the sidelines of FICCI FLO’s AI INDIA 2026 in Bengaluru, Raghavan said the outreach used AI to contact people in their own languages, answer questions, and share information about a low-cost insurance scheme. The campaign, he said, targeted users largely in tier-2 and tier-3 cities and towns, and covered nearly 4% of India’s population.
“Previously, this is something that you could not do at all,” Raghavan said. “But now the ability to do this exists. We managed to reach 45 million people in 10 days across 28 states, and the results were better than traditional approaches.”
In 2025, the Indian government selected Bengaluru-based start-up Sarvam to build the country’s first indigenous artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM).
Raghavan, who has worked for over a decade on India’s digital public infrastructure including Aadhaar, UPI and GST, said his interest in artificial intelligence grew from a concern that digital systems in India often excluded non-English speakers. “There should not be a situation where if you are in the digital world, you must speak English, and if you speak your own language, you are outside the digital world,” he said.
He said voice-based AI is particularly important in India, where people prefer speaking over typing. “The promise of AI is that AI comes to you where you are,” he said. “In India, we like to transact and do things through the medium of voice.”
Raghavan added that Sarvam AI is now planning larger population-scale deployments. “This Rabi season, we are going to call every farmer in the country and get feedback from them,” he said, describing it as an example of how AI can be used to improve access and ease of living.
During the discussion, Raghavan also spoke about the need for India to build its own AI capabilities. Referring to recent advances in China, he said that foundation AI models are no longer being built only in the United States. “If you don’t do it yourself, you end up being a digital colony,” he said.
He said India must not only use AI applications, but also understand and build the core technology.
On regulation, he said AI governance is necessary but must adapt to rapid technological change. “Regulation is critical, but it needs to be lightweight and flexible, because things are going to change,” he said.