A woman in a village in Bundelkhand opens an artificial intelligence chatbot on her smartphone. She wants to know whether the dizziness she has been experiencing during pregnancy is serious. She speaks naturally in Bundeli, the language she has used all her life. The chatbot responds in formal Hindi before slipping into English. She struggles to understand the advice, closes the application and decides to visit the nearest health centre instead.

Artificial intelligence did not fail because the technology was inadequate. It failed because it did not understand her language, her context, or her reality.

As India races to become a global leader in artificial intelligence, this invisible exclusion deserves far more attention than it currently receives. The debate has largely centred on investments, innovation, semiconductor capacity, and computing power. Far less attention has been paid to a basic question: Whose voices are teaching artificial intelligence to understand India?

The answer has profound implications for women.

India's AI story is full of contradictions. According to the Stanford University AI Index Report, Indian women have the highest AI skill penetration in the world, scoring 1.91, ahead of women in the United States and Germany. The statistic should have signalled a quiet revolution. It suggests that Indian women are acquiring the skills needed to shape one of the world's most transformative technologies.

Yet the celebration ends there.

A report by venture capital firm Kalaari Capital shows that women constitute........

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