India is charting its own course on AI regulation, balancing innovation with responsibility. The evolving governance landscape for AI companies in India.
India Approach to AI Governance
India is taking a distinctive approach to AI governance that reflects its dual identity as both a major AI producer and one of the largest markets for AI applications. Rather than adopting the prescriptive regulatory frameworks seen in the European Union, India is pursuing a principles based approach that emphasizes responsible innovation, sector specific guidelines, and industry self regulation backed by government oversight.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has been actively engaging with industry stakeholders, academia, and civil society to develop a governance framework that encourages AI adoption while addressing legitimate concerns around bias, privacy, safety, and accountability. This collaborative approach is yielding pragmatic policies that Indian AI companies can work within without stifling innovation.
Key Regulatory Developments in 2026
Several significant developments are shaping the AI governance landscape in India this year. The proposed Digital India Act is expected to include AI specific provisions around algorithmic transparency, data governance, and liability frameworks. Sector specific regulators in banking, healthcare, and telecommunications are also issuing guidelines for AI deployment within their domains.
The Reserve Bank of India has introduced guidelines for AI in financial services that mandate explainability for credit decisions, fairness auditing for automated underwriting, and human oversight requirements for high stakes financial AI applications. Similar frameworks are emerging in healthcare, where CDSCO is working on guidelines for AI based medical devices and diagnostic tools.
For companies like Aptibit building AI products that serve multiple sectors, navigating this evolving landscape requires proactive engagement with regulators and a commitment to building governance capabilities into products from the ground up rather than retrofitting them later.
Building Responsible AI Products
Responsible AI is not just about compliance. It is a competitive advantage. Companies that invest in fairness testing, explainability, bias mitigation, and robust safety measures build products that customers trust and regulators approve. At Aptibit, we embed responsible AI principles throughout our development lifecycle.
For our Visylix platform, this means implementing configurable privacy controls, transparent audit logging, role based access management, and bias testing for our computer vision models across diverse demographics. We believe that the companies setting the highest standards for responsible AI today will be the market leaders tomorrow.
The Global Context for Indian AI Regulation
India AI governance approach is being shaped by, but is distinct from, global developments. The EU AI Act, which came into force with full applicability in 2026, provides one reference point. The more flexible approaches taken by the United States, Singapore, and Japan offer alternative models. India is synthesizing elements from multiple frameworks while adapting them to its unique context.
For Indian AI companies with global ambitions, this means building products that can comply with multiple regulatory regimes. A video analytics platform deployed in India might need to meet one set of requirements, while the same platform deployed in Europe must comply with the AI Act classification of high risk systems. Designing for regulatory interoperability from the start is far more efficient than retrofitting compliance later.
International collaboration on AI safety standards is also accelerating. India active participation in forums like the Global Partnership on AI and the G20 AI working groups ensures that Indian perspectives are represented in the development of international norms.
What AI Companies Should Do Now
The most important step for AI companies operating in India is to treat governance as a core product capability rather than a compliance checkbox. This means investing in explainability tooling, bias detection pipelines, comprehensive logging, and human oversight mechanisms.
Companies should also engage proactively with sector specific regulators, participate in industry consortia developing best practices, and contribute to the public discourse around AI governance. At Aptibit Technologies, we are committed to leading by example, building AI products that are not only powerful but also transparent, fair, and accountable. The future of AI in India depends on the industry demonstrating that innovation and responsibility can go hand in hand.