Let’s check out what Preeti Lobana, Google India’s Nation Supervisor and Vice President, stated about Synthetic Intelligence (AI). Lobana, who beforehand served as vp overseeing Google’s writer, companion, advertisements content material groups, and gTech, was appointed as the brand new nation supervisor and vp of Google India operations in December 2024. Throughout a number of cases and interviews, Lobana shared Google’s plans for its AI push and investments in India. Let’s now check out them.
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What They Mentioned: Timeline
June 2025
Google sees India as a crucial market, Lobana stated in an interview with PTI, including that with the nation on monitor to achieve a USD 1-trillion digital financial system within the close to future, the tech large hopes to leverage its experience in promoting, cloud expertise, and superior AI to contribute to the nation’s financial development.
“So, for those who take a look at the digital panorama in India, (it’s) so distinctive… take into consideration the adoption. Who would have imagined a couple of years in the past that UPI and subsequently, consequently, you recognize, cost programs like Google Pay could be so extensively adopted,” she reportedly stated.
“As you recognize, we’re a 1 trillion digital financial system within the subsequent few years… so how can we convey the perfect of Google advertisements, our cloud and cutting-edge AI to energy India’s financial momentum,” she stated, outlining Google’s priorities for this market.
Lobana additional famous that India was the launchpad for YouTube Shorts and GPay, showcasing the important thing position the market performs in Google’s international technique.
“So if you consider the brief kind video ‘shorts’ got here on YouTube first to India… Take a look at the size of Google Pay in India. So that’s the place we launched the product, taking the learnings abroad. So India is a really crucial marketplace for us, and we now have made investments in placing a variety of massive groups right here,” she stated, in keeping with the report dated June 17, 2025.
November 2025
World Management Summit 2025
Preeti Lobana stated India’s synthetic intelligence journey have to be pushed by inclusivity, innovation, and native empowerment — not imitation. She was talking on the CNBC-TV18 World Management Summit 2025 in Mumbai, in keeping with the report dated November 7, 2025.
“The actual alternative for India and the World South,” she stated, “is not only to catch up however to leapfrog forward as a result of we’ve been given this distinctive expertise to resolve a few of our greatest systemic points at scale.”
AI for Inclusive Progress Throughout Healthcare, Schooling, and Agriculture
Lobana emphasised that AI can — and will — allow inclusive development by bridging entry gaps in training, healthcare, and agriculture. Nonetheless, to realize that, she stated India must construct its personal fashions of growth rooted in native languages, tradition, and realities.
“AI for India must be inclusive moderately than unique,” she famous. “We have to make it possible for AI that’s deployed understands the important thing languages in India… and for that, coaching AI by means of native datasets is completely key.”
Lobana highlighted Google’s ongoing work on open-source fashions like GEA and Undertaking Vaani, which create datasets of Indian dialects to make AI extra correct and accessible.
“We’re constructing compute and infrastructure domestically, growing that pipeline of expertise, as a result of we mustn’t be simply implementing what’s constructed elsewhere; we’re innovating right here,” she stated.
“We’ve realized to make our merchandise work for low-end telephones and intermittent connectivity,” she reportedly stated, citing lighter variations of Search, Maps, YouTube, and the simplicity of GPay, which “can be utilized by everybody from a road vendor to probably the most subtle consumer.”
She stated Google is embedding “safety by design” into its programs by means of measures similar to watermarking artificial content material, real-time risk intelligence sharing, and consumer training to construct resilience in opposition to scams.
By its startup accelerator, Google continues to again AI-led innovation in India, however Lobana confused that the main target should stay on fixing the nation’s hardest issues — from preventive healthcare and rural diagnostics to personalised studying and environment friendly logistics.
“If it really works on a Rs 6,000 cellphone and in native languages,” she reportedly stated, “it would scale not simply in India however anyplace on the planet.”
AI is about Remodeling Lives
“As competitors for knowledge centres and customers of AI merchandise heats up in India, Google will deal with staying ‘AI-first’ and spend money on authorities initiatives and native AI startups, Lobana stated in an interview.
“AI offers us a instrument to leapfrog forward,” she stated, in keeping with a Dwell Mint report dated November 12, 2025. “That is about remodeling lives, not simply stability sheets.”
Google’s Secure and Trusted AI Occasion
Accountable and trusted use of synthetic intelligence (AI) will likely be crucial to India’s technology-led transformation, with the onus on each stakeholder within the ecosystem to make sure security and accountability, Preeti Lobana stated on November 20, 2025, in keeping with a number of media stories, together with The Financial Instances and PTI.
“For AI to be actually adopted and be in on a regular basis use, there’s a variety of onus on all of us as an ecosystem to make it possible for it’s secure and trusted. AI would function an important basis within the journey in direction of a Viksit Bharat, underlining that belief and security are stipulations for widespread adoption,” she stated at Google’s ‘Secure and Trusted AI” occasion.
Citing the nation’s range, Lobana stated, “The complexity of India will present the world how expertise can scale and drive affect, even to resolve the hardest systemic points… With exact, tailor-made, domestically contextualised options for the various pockets (that exist in India).”
“AI represents a transformational expertise that can unlock human potential, with India main this revolution in actual time,” she added.
She additionally emphasised that whereas AI guarantees a serious leap ahead, progress have to be constructed on a basis of confidence and collaboration. “It might probably’t be only a leap of religion. We should take a assured step into stable floor,” she stated, including that security will not be a end line however a steady, collective duty.
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December 2025
In an interview with Moneycontrol’s Managing Editor Nalin Mehta, Lobana confused why India stays a crucial development space with very important strategic significance to Google regardless of tensions round commerce and tariffs.
“In all of those points, India is checked out as a serious development space. The imaginative and prescient of Viksit Bharat, the honourable Prime Minister’s imaginative and prescient, and the India AI Mission are all very highly effective statements on the place we wish to go. For Sundar Pichai and Google and for us, we’re right here with India as we glance to develop our digital financial system – partnering with shoppers, companies and enterprises,” she stated, in keeping with the report dated December 4, 2025.
Google’s Investments: Knowledge Centres, Expertise, and Infrastructure
“Stuff will occur round. We’re deeply dedicated. You recognize we made a latest announcement about investing $15 billion in our gigawatt scale knowledge middle in Visakapatnam. It is undersea cables, it is renewable power. We introduced the opening of our largest ever workplace in India in Ananta in Bengaluru. That’s a really massive workplace. We lately launched the first-ever in Asia Google Security Engineering Heart in India – with a deal with privateness and security. It’s the first ever in Asia. So, we’re persevering with to take a position. Some issues occur across the ecosystem however we proceed to be on our path to be with India and proceed and develop,” she stated, responding to a query about investments regardless of tensions round tariffs.
She defined her high priorities for the approaching 12 months, noting that the primary is how greatest AI may be leveraged.
“We deeply imagine our AI may be very highly effective. Gemini is just like the best-in-class mannequin. How can we embed AI in services and products to ensure AI is the lever that helps India leapfrog forward for the systemic challenges? The following step is about how can we make AI fashions domestically related from the Indic languages viewpoint or different native contexts. For instance, you know the way Indian ladies after supply post-natal care eat gond ke laddoo? Now any mannequin constructed abroad will not have that context while you speak about post-natal maternal care. So, we construct all that into our mannequin in order that it turns into domestically conscious by way of Indic languages but additionally culturally conscious. How can we do that for open-source fashions like Gemma is a precedence so India’s vastness and complexity turn into a bonus and we are able to present to the world that it is a mannequin that may scale to the World South and different nations.”
When requested how a lot of Google’s core expertise is now being developed in India for the world, she reportedly stated: “We began with foundational fashions like Gemini constructed outdoors India, however now we’re working exhausting to convey the native Indian context into them. We enrich these fashions with native languages — you might want to convey 10-12, even 22 languages to those fashions — and with cultural nuances. We focus very exhausting on ensuring that the fashions are really multimodal, as a result of in India folks use voice, pictures, video or circle-to-search as simply as textual content. Once we open-source them by means of efforts like Gemma or MedGemma, the query is how do you present the suitable datasets. Google is consistently working in collaboration with establishments just like the Indian Institute of Science and Undertaking Vaani so the suitable datasets can be found for the broader ecosystem to allow them to prepare their fashions on Indian knowledge.”
On India’s AI mission, she reportedly stated, “It’s superb to see that the federal government has a transparent imaginative and prescient and it has clear pillars — whether or not we’re speaking about compute, democratising entry to AI or privateness and safety.”
“We’re bringing extra compute, native compute, including TPUs (Tensor Processing Models) so industries in India can prepare their fashions, together with the infrastructure investments and skilling. AI must be inclusive for all,” she added.
Talking in regards to the latest USD 15 billion funding, “Frankly, this USD 15 billion funding in Vizag is the most important ever in an information centre outdoors of the US. That tells you the strategic significance and criticality of India and the Vizag knowledge centre. It’s a one-gigawatt knowledge middle however it’s also in regards to the commitments we’re making for clear inexperienced power: including energy to the grid, harnessing photo voltaic, wind and different sources of energy.
It’s additionally about deploying further undersea cables and capability. We’re speaking about sooner speeds, much less latency and extra localisation. That could be a very huge assertion on our half to say we imagine in India. It’s a strategic location and we’re making that knowledge centre growth now. It’s a pretty formidable funding. Once we speak about giga-watt scale, it is extremely huge. It’s the single largest funding of its sort outdoors the US. No different nation has such an funding.”
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Talking in regards to the transition from Search to AI, she reportedly stated, “I’m positive you heard our earnings name two-three weeks in the past – that was our first quarter with USD 100 billion income. In fact, Cloud is rising very quickly however a variety of that income is grounded in what we get from the Adverts enterprise on the again of Search. These outcomes communicate for the truth that search is doing properly, even with AI.
What we’re seeing is folks have longer queries. We have now 5 trillion searches. We aren’t seeing a discount in search queries. There was innovation in Search: when you consider folks looking utilizing Google Lens, which may be very massive in India or Voice, which may be very massive in India or Circle-to-search, the place you possibly can simply circle one thing and search it. We’re not seeing Search decelerate in any respect. Our outcomes replicate that Search is constant to be strong. There’s only a change in how shoppers are utilizing it and the way we’re assembly the second.”
In truth, what we’re seeing is that now when folks click on on a hyperlink, they get higher certified leads. As a result of in AI mode, we additionally hyperlink the sources. These are higher certified hyperlinks. Folks do not bounce again. They spend extra time on the web site. So search is powerful and wholesome and we’re assembly the second by evolving search.”
Talking about modifications or divergences by way of Indian languages, she stated: “India will not be one India, and you may’t choose and select. After English, Hindi has the most important scale, however once we expanded AI mode into a number of languages, we checked out Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and others.
For me, the most important factor is that we’re not going sequentially, saying this language first or that one. The query is: how rapidly can we convey the perfect of AI to many languages at scale? Each Indian says, my language is essential to me. So we begin with one after which quickly use the expertise to increase to others. We could pilot in a single, however then we scale rapidly to different languages.”
It is a growing story, and extra quotes and insights from Preeti Lobana will likely be added as they turn into accessible.
