Cracking India's language barrier with AI

India's digital systems speak at scale, but often in the wrong language. What happens when Al learns tone, intent, and emotion across Indian languages, and why that shift changes how banks, governments, and citizens actually connect

- Ashok Pandey

India's digital growth has never been limited by ambition or infrastructure. The real constraint has always been communication. When technology speaks only one language, vast sections of the population remain excluded, no matter how advanced the platform. This challenge sits at the heart of India's digital transformation journey.

In a detailed conversation with Nakul Kundra, Co-founder, Devnagri AI, a clear picture emerges of how language, context, and technology intersect, and why solving for Indian languages requires far more than basic translation.

From services to a product-led problem

The journey began not with artificial intelligence, but with years of building technology for others. A services-led business, started in 2009, focused on developing solutions and products for external clients. Over time, a realization set in: while many products were being built, none truly belonged to the builders themselves.

The search for a meaningful product naturally turned toward India's scale. With a population running into hundreds of crores, the question was not about building another app but about identifying a structural gap that affected both citizens and businesses. Language emerged as that gap.

Despite India's linguistic diversity, most digital platforms catered to a limited set of regional languages, often without depth or context. Research highlighted a stark reality: only a small fraction of Indians could comfortably read or understand English.

The rest of the population operated almost entirely in local languages, creating a massive disconnect between digital systems and their intended users.

This gap was large, underserved, and largely uncontested when the idea for Devnagri AI began to take shape.

Why translation alone was not enough