"2026 will be year of French-Indian innovation": France's Special Envoy for AI Bouverot

In an interview with ANI, Bouverot expressed her enthusiasm for the partnership, showing her support for the ties between the two countries in advancing AI development.

"2026 will be the year of French-Indian innovation. And that's a great opportunity to get our ecosystems, our startups, to work together," she said.

"I'm here to help support this partnership between our two countries in doing that. I think we have a very good alignment between the vision from France and the vision from India that AI needs to be useful for our people, our users, and our citizens. And therefore, I'm very interested in any use cases in agriculture, commerce, education, and healthcare," the special envoy added.

The India-AI Impact Summit 2026, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the France AI Action Summit this year, is scheduled to take place from February 19 to February 20 in the national capital and will be the first-ever global AI summit hosted in the Global South.

Building on the momentum of leading international forums such as the UK AI Safety Summit, the AI Seoul Summit, the France AI Action Summit, and the Global AI Summit on Africa, this high-level convening marks a critical inflection point.

According to the official website, the summit will strengthen existing multilateral initiatives while advancing new priorities, deliverables, and cooperative frameworks--moving from high-level political statements to demonstrable impact and tangible progress in global AI cooperation.

Highlighting the scope for collaboration, Bouverot said India and France together can develop AI that can better align with the unique needs and cultural contexts of both nations, noting the importance of making AI more inclusive and culturally aware, emphasising the need to reflect the diversity of languages and traditions in AI tools.

"In AI, we have, of course, the innovation ecosystem. AI chatbots are like concentrated packs of culture or expressions of culture. You can think about the very few languages in which the chatbots are available. If you ask for an image of a wedding, it will give you a woman in white and a man in a black suit. And that's true in some cultures, but that's not true in all cultures. I think we share between India and France, where our cultures are broader and richer. We share a view that we need to work together to get AI developed in a way that is closer to our needs and to our cultures," Bouverot said.

The India-AI Impact Summit 2026 charts a path towards a future where the transformative impact of AI serves humanity, advances inclusive growth, and promotes people-centric innovations that protect our planet. (ANI)