Microsoft AI tools to bridge India’s 100+ language gaps

Enter Microsoft’s AI for Good initiative—the tech giant’s umbrella program that tries to use AI to solve problems in health, environmental protection, and human development. The U.S. company has used India to pilot several novel uses of the new technology, such as an app that uses AI to tell farmers the best time to sow seeds or a model that uses satellite images to forecast how a natural disaster might hurt a vulnerable population. 

But Microsoft and its AI researchers are particularly interested in navigating India’s linguistic challenges, hoping it might unlock breakthroughs elsewhere. “India’s complexity makes it a test bed for multilingual settings everywhere,” says Ahmed Mazhari, Asia president for Microsoft. “If you can solve and build for India, then you can solve and build for the world.”

Small languages and large language models

The Jugalbandi chatbot, which Microsoft debuted in May 2023, is one of AI for Good’s flagship projects. The chatbot is targeted to rural farmers—specifically those who live in areas that don’t speak India’s more popular languages—who want to learn about or access public services, such as applying for a scholarship.

Jugalbandi uses a large language model, developed with local research lab AI4Bharat, to parse a query, uncover the relevant information, then generate an easy-to-understand answer in the user’s local tongue. (Currently, Jugalbandi can translate 10 of India’s 22 official languages.)

(Fortune earlier featured Microsoft’s work with AI and Jugalbandi on its 2023’s “Change the World” list.)

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