Summary
AI tools are increasingly showing up in day-to-day work across India’s farming and education coaching sectors, a shift that is taking center stage as New Delhi hosts a five-day AI summit attended by heads of state and top technology executives. The latest examples include automated work in the fields of northern India and faster processing of exam materials in coaching centers where competition for civil service roles is intense.
In Karnal, farmer Bir Virk has said he uses an iPad mounted beside his tractor’s steering wheel to switch the vehicle to automatic mode, allowing the machine to move forward and harvest potatoes without hands-on driving. He described the system as part of a workflow he sees as improving efficiency, saying the technology helps him carry on the work his grandfather and father did “with the right technology.” Virk also said the tractor is able to maintain an accuracy of 0.01 centimeter while operating and that his AI-enabled tractor reduced his work time by half.
Virk said the automated tractor plants seeds, sprays fertilizer, and harvests crops, and that the setup costs about $3,864. He described how the system combines a steering motor, satellite signals that help it move precisely, and AI-driven software that converts data into movement, along with a process that logs errors and uploads them to a cloud platform for analysis and updates that are sent back to the machine.
About 145 kilometers (90 miles) away in New Delhi, educator Swetank Pandey described using automation in a sector built around grading and preparing students for the competitive civil services exams. Pandey said his team uses AI tools to scan and grade handwritten answer sheets, create targeted study material, and structure syllabuses for aspirants, and he said the approach can evaluate tens of thousands of papers in as little as 20 to 25 minutes.
Pandey said the coaching center uses a hybrid approach, in which AI helps with evaluations while teachers review the output to improve both speed and quality. He also said AI can produce study material that students find more relatable than what teachers devise on their own, adding that AI can provide “in advance” a sense of what a student is doing and what comes next to reach their goals.
The push for AI use in India is also showing up in government and industry efforts to scale capability and workforce training, according to the report’s description of national initiatives. With nearly a billion internet users, India has also become a focus for global technology companies looking to expand AI services in a market described as one of the fastest-growing digital economies.
The article also pointed to recent investment announcements: Microsoft said it would invest $17.5 billion over four years to expand cloud and AI infrastructure in India, and Google said it would invest $15 billion over five years, including plans for its first AI hub in the country. Sangeeta Gupta, senior vice president at NASSCOM, said “There’s some good use cases that have started,” and described scaling platforms that embed AI into business functions.
At the same time, the report said India’s adoption of AI has constraints, including challenges in developing large-scale AI models domestically comparable to OpenAI in the United States and DeepSeek in China. It said limited access to advanced semiconductor chips, data centers, and hundreds of local languages are among the obstacles, and it cited disruption for some workers as companies invest more in AI training and reskilling.
The report tied that backdrop to both early adopters and a broader labor picture, including a reference to Tata Consultancy Services cutting more than 12,000 jobs last year as part of a shift driven by rapid adoption of AI. Even so, Virk and Pandey’s examples remain central to the story as evidence that AI tools are already being used by some to cut time and labor and to increase productivity while businesses and governments work on expanding the technology’s reach.