Across India’s villages and cities, women are the backbone of our economy, running farms, managing small businesses, driving community projects, and shaping families’ futures. Their contributions already power much of India’s growth story, even if official statistics don’t always capture their impact. By recognising and supporting this energy, India has the chance to unleash one of its greatest strengths: a female workforce whose potential, once fully visible and valued, can transform our economy and society.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), if deployed wisely, could help rewrite that story. AI is not just about self-driving cars or futuristic robots. It can recognise patterns in vast amounts of data, match workers with opportunities, and predict market trends. For India’s women, especially in rural and informal sectors, these capabilities can turn invisible work into visible economic power.
Some early examples point to what’s possible. In Maharashtra, a pilot with women farmers has used AI-powered weather and soil analytics to plan crops more efficiently. Farmers received precise planting schedules and pest alerts in Marathi, which boosted yields and reduced losses. In Tamil Nadu, self-help groups (SHGs) experimenting with AI-based pricing tools discovered fairer ways to price handicrafts, connecting directly to buyers through digital marketplaces. These are small initiatives, but they show how AI can bridge information gaps that have long disadvantaged women.
Another would be Digital Green’s AI-powered assistant ‘Farmer Chat’ to deliver localised, language-ready, climate-smart agricultural advice by voice, text and video. In Odisha and other states, women farmers using these services can access crop advice, market information and troubleshooting at the point of need, lowering time lost to trial-and-error and increasing yields and income. By making agricultural knowledge accessible in local languages and modes (voice/video), the platform recognises women’s constraints (time, mobility, literacy) and turns day-to-day farm work into a higher-return activity.
These examples are small, but they signal a profound shift, AI can bridge long-standing information gaps that have disadvantaged women for decades. An AI-driven platform could map women’s informal contributions, like stitching garments for local markets or cultivating small kitchen gardens and convert them into measurable data points. That visibility could make it easier for banks to extend credit, for local governments to design relevant training, or for cooperatives to negotiate better prices. Imagine an AI assistant that not only guides a farmer on the best crop to sow but also connects her to potential buyers and affordable logistics, all in her language and within her means.
But technology alone is not the solution. Blindness to bias is a fundamental flaw in AI technology, as fairness is not inherently embedded within these systems. Many official datasets, product designs and public services are built on biased or incomplete data. Without time-use data, disaggregated usage metrics, and contextual insights, AI systems risk replicating or amplifying existing invisibilities. AI can just as easily replicate biases present in the data it learns from. If existing records undercount women’s work, an algorithm could reinforce their invisibility.
Access is another hurdle; millions of women still lack smartphones, reliable internet, or the digital literacy to navigate apps. Without safeguards, AI could widen gaps instead of closing them.
This is where India’s strong grassroots networks can make a difference. Panchayats, anganwadi workers, and self-help groups have deep local trust and knowledge. Training women from these networks as community tech ambassadors could help bridge the digital divide. Building AI interfaces in regional languages, designing voice-based tools for non-literate users, and keeping algorithms transparent are all essential steps. Public-private collaborations, where companies provide the technology but communities shape its use, could ensure AI empowers rather than exploits.
Policy frameworks must evolve beyond measuring success merely through enrolment numbers or the delivery of cash transfers, and instead focus on more meaningful outcomes such as enhanced bargaining power within households and communities, greater income stability and diversification, and improved market access with fair participation. Institutions like NITI Aayog and state governments could play a pivotal role by integrating AI-driven insights into skilling programmes, rural credit policies, and cooperative planning, thereby ensuring that women’s contributions are recognised and rewarded. At the same time, private firms must move beyond viewing women solely as consumers, and begin to acknowledge and support them as producers, entrepreneurs, and innovators who are central to India’s economic growth and social transformation.
Economists have long argued that raising women’s participation in the workforce could add trillions to India’s GDP. But beyond the numbers is a deeper truth, acknowledging women’s labour is about dignity and fairness. It is about recognising that the unpaid and unseen work sustaining families and communities is not charity, it is the backbone of the economy.
India is at a turning point. As AI reshapes industries from manufacturing to finance, there is a risk that women will again be left out of the conversation. But there is also an opportunity to design a future where technology sees them, values them, and amplifies their contributions. Empowering women through AI is not just a technological challenge; it's a moral and economic imperative.
The next big leap in India’s growth will not come from another welfare cheque or cash transfer. It will come when algorithms learn to see the women who have been invisible for too long, and when their work finally steps out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
Empowering women through AI is not just a technological challenge. It is a moral, economic, and generational imperative.
This article is authored by Tauseef Alam, associate, and Ruchi Tripathi, senior policy associate to Sujeet Kumar, MP (Rajya Sabha), New Delhi.