Reliance Industries Charts Aggressive AI Leadership Path in India

At its 2026 annual general meeting today, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani said artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a multi-trillion-dollar business globally and the company aims to lead this segment in India.

“The infrastructure for it is being built at breakneck speed, and it will be fully operationalised over the next couple of years,” he added.

Here are the key takeaways from the annual meet:

‘AI for India, by India’

Reliance outlined an India-focussed AI strategy anchored in sovereign infrastructure, positioning AI as central to the country’s digital future.

“What we are building is AI for India, AI by India, and AI that will one day serve the world,” Jio Platforms Managing Director Akash Ambani said, adding that Jio is developing AI in Indian languages to make it more accessible and relevant.

The group aims to make AI affordable by the end of the decade while building foundational infrastructure within India.

“Reliance Intelligence (RIL’s AI initiative) is building a sovereign AI backbone in Jamnagar,” he said, with the first 120 MW expected to be commissioned by end-2026. The company is also deploying advanced Nvidia GB300 GPUs as part of its initial infrastructure build-out.

Jio IPO

The board of Jio Platforms approved the filing of its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with market regulator Sebi earlier today, said Mukesh Ambani.

“The Jio IPO…. is expected to unlock significant value for Reliance shareholders, while offering an attractive investment opportunity to new investors.

“Akash Ambani, Isha Ambani, and Anant Ambani are heading the Jio IPO process and will lead the next generation of value creation opportunities,” he said.

Quick commerce push

The retail business reported strong growth across metrics in FY26, with revenue rising to Rs 3,70,026 crore and quick commerce emerging as a key driver, director Isha Ambani noted.

The company’s customer base has reached 387 million, up 11% year-on-year (in FY26), she said, and added: “We processed 1.93 billion transactions, up 39% on-year.”

Highlighting the growing role of rapid delivery, she said, “Quick commerce is adding a promising layer of growth to large-basket shopping.” JioMart has scaled into one of India’s largest quick commerce networks, with over 3,100 stores serving more than 1,200 cities across 5,100 pin codes.

Category growth remained strong, with the home and personal care segment growing at “five times the industry rate,” she said.

Jio’s AI revamp

Jio is embedding AI into its core network infrastructure to deliver intelligent services at scale. The network currently carries around 20 billion minutes of voice traffic, “making it one of the largest voice carriers in the world,” Akash Ambani said.

“India should not be a mere consumer of AI created elsewhere. It should be a creator, adopter, and global leader in AI,” added Mukesh Ambani.

Jio also unveiled a suite of AI-led products and platforms, including Jio Teleframe and a network-integrated voice assistant.

Jio TeleFrame is a hub for the home, where AI agents manage home automation, entertainment, and more. The voice assistant offers real-time transcription of calls, generating action points, reminders, etc.

Content boom

Reliance's streaming platform JioStar reported 451 million monthly active users, while its bouquet of TV channels commands a 34.7% market share and reaches 389 million daily viewers, Mukesh Ambani said.

The company also launched JioStar GenAI Media Studio (JAMS), an end-to-end, AI-native content production pipeline that spans the full journey from ideation and storytelling to image, audio, video, and final production workflows. This marks the company’s latest push to deploy AI at scale in media production.

(Catch all the Technology News News, and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.)