Anand / New Delhi – February 20, 2026: In a decisive step toward AI-enabled rural empowerment, India’s largest dairy cooperative has launched an artificial intelligence platform — AmulAI — anchored by a digital assistant named Sarlaben, aimed at transforming information access and productivity for more than 36 lakh milk producers in Gujarat. The initiative, referenced by Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, exemplifies how AI can be blended with cooperative structures to deepen inclusive growth.
Why Sarlaben Matters to Dairy Cooperatives?
Unlike traditional one-off advisory services, Sarlaben is designed as a 24×7 AI assistant, delivering personalised agricultural and dairy guidance — from cattle health and feeding protocols to breeding schedules, vaccination reminders, and government subsidy information — directly to farmers via mobile apps and simple voice calls in Gujarati.
At its core, Sarlaben leverages Amul’s rich cooperative data ecosystem, which spans decades of transaction records, veterinary treatments, artificial inseminations, satellite-assisted fodder data, and a detailed cattle census — providing contextually relevant and verified guidance to producers.
This marks a shift from basic digital portals to an AI-driven, contextual decision-support system embedded in daily workflows — a significant strategic move for cooperative resilience and rural knowledge empowerment.
A Technology for Inclusion and Accessibility
Crucially, the platform’s design reflects the cooperative sector’s demographic realities. With a large percentage of women as primary dairy producers, Sarlaben’s voice-first, multilingual accessibility — including support for feature phones — strengthens inclusion where digital divides remain prominent.
At the AI Impact Summit 2026, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi reiterated the government’s focus on human-centric AI, highlighting that technology should serve citizens across geographies, genders, and income levels — a vision that Sarlaben’s deployment directly embodies in the agrarian context.
Beyond Dairy — A Cooperative Playbook for AI Adoption
While Sarlaben is rooted in dairy, its implications are broader:
- Data-Driven Cooperative Advantage: By transforming raw cooperative data into actionable real-time guidance, Amul fortifies its role from transactional intermediary to intelligence-powered ecosystem steward.
- Scalable Rural Info-Infrastructure: The model demonstrates how digital infrastructure — when layered with AI — can close long-standing advisory gaps, reducing dependency on in-person extension services.
- Blueprint for Other Sectors: The construct — leveraging local language, contextual data, and low-bandwidth delivery — offers a replicable template for other agricultural and cooperative domains seeking digital transformation.
Challenge
Despite its promise, adoption might depend on pairing AI with broader skilling — for digital literacy and domain understanding — especially for producers unfamiliar with digital tools.
Looking Ahead
The launch of AmulAI Sarlaben is timely, aligning with India’s broader AI policy emphasis on democratizing technology for inclusion and empowerment. As Prime Minister Modi underscored at the summit, AI’s true test lies not in innovation alone but in its capacity to elevate the potential of millions of everyday users across sectors and regions. For the cooperative dairy sector — where trust, community, and data intersect — Sarlaben offers a compelling case study. If scaled effectively, this initiative could not only enhance producer incomes and animal productivity but also catalyse a new generation of AI-augmented cooperative services, potentially redefining rural knowledge ecosystems across India. Also read about India’s Dairy Vision Towards Viksit Bharat 2047.
