Microsoft launches Jugalbandi, a multilingual AI-chat bot for rural India

Microsoft has launched a multilingual chatbot named Jugalbandi specifically tailored to reach the rural parts of India. Developed in partnership with AI4Bharat and IIT Madras, this bot is accessible through WhatsApp, and aims to provide information about government welfare activities to areas where conventional media platforms struggle to reach. The chatbot retrieves English information from relevant programs and translates it into local languages, based on user queries which can be spoken or typed. It combines AI models from AI4Bharat and Microsoft Azure OpenAI, offering a reliable, responsible, and secure platform for users, leveraging Indian government databases.

Important Points:

  1. Microsoft launched a multilingual chatbot named Jugalbandi, tailored for rural India.
  2. It is accessible via WhatsApp.
  3. It was developed in collaboration with AI4Bharat and IIT Madras.
  4. The bot understands user queries in multiple Indian languages and provides information in the user's local language.
  5. It retrieves information from concerned programs and translates it to local languages.