Jugalbandi, an AI-driven chatbot accessible through mobile devices, impressed Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at the company’s annual Build developers’ conference. The generative AI tool can help rural Indians access government welfare programs in their local vernacular.

What Happened? Microsoft has been successfully testing Jugalbandi in Biwan, a farming village south of New Delhi, stating that the chatbot has provided the villagers with a crucial platform to request information about government support in their local languages.

In this context, Jugalbandi is not just a technological innovation; it’s a life-altering tool. The Redmond giant highlighted Jugalbandi’s use case in a video where Vandana, an 18-year-old part-time teacher from Biwan, uses this chatbot to explore further education opportunities.

By typing her queries in Hindi, she received detailed information about different scholarships suitable for her study fields, such as Political Science, Hindi, and History. Jugalbandi also provided Vandana with the eligibility criteria and required documentation for these scholarships.

Developed by AI4Bharat in collaboration with the Indian government and Microsoft Azure OpenAI, Jugalbandi has captured the attention of global tech leaders, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who praised the technology’s potential reach and impact during his keynote speech at the Build conference.

Since its launch in early April, the AI chatbot has been continuously refining its model with data from various Indian government databases. It currently operates in ten of India’s 22 official languages and covers 171 of about 20,000 government programs. Crucially, it translates often English-only information into the user’s chosen language. In a country like India, where English is spoken by only 11% of the 1.4 billion population, this feature is of immense importance.

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