New Delhi, India — February 17, 2026 | Annapurna Finance, one of India’s leading microfinance institutions, has joined the Alliance for Inclusive AI as an Alliance Member, becoming the first microfinance institution globally to formally participate in the coalition.

The announcement coincides with the AI Impact Summit, highlighting India’s growing role in shaping how artificial intelligence is tested, governed, and applied in real-world development contexts.

Annapurna Finance serves 2.9 million clients across India, 98 percent of whom are women in rural and semi-urban communities. The institution is experimenting with AI across select operational and customer-facing areas, focusing on learning, testing, and building safeguards before any broader adoption.

“AI presents real opportunities for improving efficiency and reach in inclusive finance, but it also raises important questions around trust, fairness, and customer protection,” said Dibyajyoti Pattanaik, Executive Director of Annapurna Finance. “Our focus is on careful experimentation, understanding what works, what doesn’t, and what safeguards are needed, before making decisions about scale. Joining the Alliance allows us to engage openly with peers and contribute to a shared learning effort.”

The Alliance for Inclusive AI is a global, practitioner-led coalition founded by BFA Global, MSC, and Caribou, working to ensure AI systems serve underserved populations in emerging and frontier markets. It brings together financial institutions, technology providers, funders, and policymakers to translate responsible AI principles into practical approaches grounded in real operating environments.

Annapurna’s participation anchors the Alliance in a large-scale, real-economy context, where AI experimentation takes place under regulatory oversight and directly affects millions of low-income customers. This creates an opportunity to generate insights that can inform other institutions, funders, and regulators navigating similar questions.

Two areas illustrate Annapurna’s current experimentation.

1. In credit and risk management, Annapurna is testing AI-enabled and rule-based decision support tools to improve consistency and turnaround times in underwriting, while retaining human oversight and clear explainability.
2. In customer engagement, the institution is experimenting with AI-enabled vernacular and voice-based support tools to improve access for rural and low-literacy customers, while preserving human interaction for complex or sensitive needs.

These efforts remain exploratory, but they are being tested in real operating conditions at a national scale, generating practical learning on how AI can be applied responsibly in inclusive finance.

“Inclusive AI will not be defined in labs or policy papers alone—it will be shaped by how institutions experiment in real-world settings,” said Prateek Shrivastava, representing the Alliance for Inclusive AI. “Annapurna’s participation strengthens our ability to support shared learning across institutions serving millions of low-income customers, particularly women, and to inform responsible adoption before irreversible scale decisions are made.”

By announcing this partnership at the AI Impact Summit, Annapurna Finance and the Alliance for Inclusive AI signal a broader shift: India is advancing not only AI capabilities, but also how AI is tested, governed, and applied within core economic institutions.

As an Alliance Member, Annapurna will participate in peer exchange and the development of practical guidance, supporting the Alliance’s objective of ensuring that AI-driven innovation expands opportunity without deepening existing inequalities.