Our research spans AI adoption in small businesses and startups, AI use in social impact organisations, and how AI awareness is taking shape in low-income communities, alongside a growing interest in AI within digital public infrastructure and sovereign AI.

Research Areas

AI in Business

How and why do businesses adopt AI, and what happens when they do? Through in-depth surveys and interviews with startups, MSMEs and ecosystem stakeholders across India, we examine AI deployment decisions, organisational change, workflow transformation and evolving business models, generating practical and policy-relevant insights into AI's impact on firms at scale.

AI for Social Impact

AI and Society

Harnessing AI for social good requires understanding both its potential and its limits. We investigate, through case studies and stakeholder interviews, how AI is improving access to finance, healthcare and livelihoods, and how social enterprises can use AI to deepen impact, expand reach and serve underserved communities more effectively.

Who has access to AI, and who is being left behind? Through fieldwork and interviews across rural and urban communities in India, we explore AI awareness, literacy and usage. We also study how AI infrastructure, sovereign AI and digital public infrastructure can be designed to serve societal good and support genuinely inclusive participation.

Research Projects

AI in MSMEs

How do small and medium enterprises think about, deploy and govern AI? Drawing on interviews with businesses, implementation agencies and ecosystem stakeholders, we examine deployment decisions, organisational priorities, responsible AI practices and barriers to adoption. We are now deepening this work through sector-specific studies in manufacturing and IT & ITeS.

What do people in rural India actually know about AI, and how might it serve them? Through ethnographic fieldwork across villages in Maharashtra, conducted with IITB students via the TD390 course, we have interviewed 200 villagers to understand AI awareness, literacy, usage and locally relevant potential use cases.

AI in the Village

AI in Startups

How are non-AI-native startups integrating AI into their operations, and to what effect? Through a survey and stakeholder interviews spanning startups and ecosystem actors across critical sectors, we examine how founders and teams make AI deployment decisions, what drives adoption, and how AI is reshaping organisational structures and strategy.

AI in Social Impact Organisations

Can AI help social impact organisations reach more people, deliver better services and deepen their impact? Through in-depth comparative case studies, we examine how social enterprises and impact organisations are deploying AI across sectors including healthcare, livelihoods, agriculture and financial inclusion, with a focus on scaling and serving low-income communities.