AI Impact Summit: From telemedicine to trust, how AI supports healthcare

At Bharat Mandapam, the India AI Impact Summit 2026 spotlights how AI is reshaping healthcare delivery, from digital records and teleconsultations to ethical, population-scale deployment

Artificial intelligence is moving from pilot projects to policy frameworks in India’s healthcare system. At the ongoing India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, government leaders, global experts and industry representatives are discussing how AI can be deployed at scale to strengthen public health delivery, improve efficiency and expand access to care. 

From digitisation to intelligent health systems at population scale 

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare hosted a high-level panel titled “Scaling AI for Public Health Impact: Public-Private Partnership”, underscoring India’s ambition to deploy AI at population scale for inclusive healthcare delivery.

 

During the panel, Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava said India’s health AI journey started when the country moved from basic digitisation of records to building a nationally interoperable digital health ecosystem. She further said that digital systems capture and transmit information, and AI interprets it and acts on it.

 

“Digital systems capture and transmit information, while AI enables intelligent interpretation and action,” she said.

 

She highlighted the work done under Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) and E-Sanjeevani.

 

According to the Government of India, over 859 million Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) accounts have been created under the ABDM, linked to more than 878 million health records. More than 1,80,000 Ayushman Arogya Mandirs are operational.

 

E-Sanjeevani, powered by AI-assisted Clinical Decision Support Systems, has enabled over 449 million teleconsultations with more than 2,20,000 registered providers. It is now described as the world’s largest telemedicine initiative in primary healthcare.

 

For rural India, that means fewer hours spent travelling for a basic consultation. For urban India, it means quicker triaging. For overstretched doctors, it means decision-support tools. Srivastava emphasised that AI is meant to reduce workforce burden, not replace doctors.  

AI-enabled health innovations: From diabetic eye screening to outbreak alerts 

At the India AI Impact Summit, innovators demonstrated artificial intelligence-powered working systems:

• MadhuNetrAI for diabetic retinopathy screening
• AI-enabled handheld X-rays
• Acoustic screening tools like Cough Against TB for tuberculosis detection
• AI-based surveillance systems that generate early epidemic alerts

 

NHA highlights AI for efficiency, fraud detection and accountability 

Dr Sunil Kumar Barnwal, Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Authority (NHA), focused on the administrative power of AI.

 

In large public health programmes, AI-powered analytics can strengthen: 

• Beneficiary identification 
• Claims management 
• Fraud detection 
• Monitoring of service utilisation 

In a system as large and complex as India’s, leakage and inefficiency are not abstract concerns. AI, if governed properly, could improve transparency and accountability, said Dr Barnwal.

 

He emphasised interoperable digital platforms backed by strong data governance and privacy safeguards, a reminder that scale without safeguards is a risk.  

SAHI and BODH: New national AI-health initiatives to be launched 

On the second day of the Summit, Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda will launch two national AI-health initiatives.

 

First, the Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare for India (SAHI). This is designed as a national guidance framework for safe, ethical, evidence-based AI adoption. It covers governance, data stewardship, validation and monitoring.

 

Second, the Benchmarking Open Data Platform for Health AI (BODH). Developed by IIT Kanpur with the National Health Authority, it allows AI models to be evaluated on diverse real-world datasets without sharing underlying data. 

AI-enabled inclusive healthcare and workforce impact 

During the summit, experts and industry leaders also discussed the expansion of access through telemedicine and diagnostics, earlier disease detection, fraud monitoring in large public schemes, and predictive outbreak modelling.

 

Also on display:

• A multilingual AI-powered Clinical Decision Support System
• A voice-to-text model converting doctors’ speech into digital prescriptions integrated with HMIS workflows
• An AI media surveillance system generating early outbreak signals 

Will AI take away healthcare jobs? 

Talking about jobs in healthcare and AI, Dr Anurag Mairal, Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, pushed back against the fear that AI will shrink healthcare employment. He highlighted that in the US, around 15 per cent of the population is involved in healthcare in some way. Translating that proportion to India’s 1.4 billion people, he argued, means 150 million-plus roles.

 

As care shifts from tertiary hospitals to homes, villages and smaller towns, more people will be needed, he stressed. AI, in his view, will enable new roles such as care navigators for high-risk patients.  

What AI in healthcare could mean for patients and providers 

• If you are a patient, AI could mean faster reports, earlier detection, and fewer hospital visits. 
• If you are a doctor, it could mean decision-support tools that reduce cognitive load. 
• If you are a policymaker, it could mean better targeting and fraud detection in massive health schemes. 
• If you are a student, it may mean entirely new health-tech career pathways that do not yet exist. 

In healthcare, the direction now seems clearer: strengthen the digital backbone, test AI carefully, protect patient data and ensure new tools actually narrow gaps rather than widen them. The real test, however, lies in how these systems work in district hospitals, primary care centres and ordinary homes. Artificial intelligence is already part of India’s health ecosystem; what comes next will depend on trust, accountability and how responsibly it is scaled.