Reliance Industries is embedding AI assistants directly into phone calls, apps, and home devices to establish itself as India's homegrown AI champion, reducing reliance on foreign technology.

What happened: Mukesh Ambani's Reliance announced Jio Call Agent, an AI assistant that joins phone calls to transcribe conversations and book services, launching later this year for more than 500 million users. The company also unveiled an AI version of its MyJio app and TeleFrame, a home display with AI agents. A separate suite of AI services for healthcare, education, agriculture, and small business was branded JioHealthIQ, JioLearnIQ, JioKrishiIQ, and AI Vyapar, all designed to work across multiple Indian languages. Separately, Reliance's board approved a draft prospectus for Jio Platforms' initial public offering.

Why it matters: Reliance is building these services into its existing telecom network rather than as standalone apps, which could give it a distribution advantage and reduce users' dependence on third-party apps in an AI market dominated by U.S. and Chinese companies. The move reflects India's effort to develop domestic AI capabilities and reduce dependency on foreign models and cloud providers—a risk highlighted when overseas decisions on model access affected Indian startups. Ambani stated that 'India should not be a mere consumer of AI created elsewhere. It must become a creator, adopter, and a global leader in AI.'

What to watch: The company announced plans to invest $110 billion（約18兆円） in AI infrastructure and is collaborating with Meta to establish an AI data center in Gujarat. However, Reliance has not answered questions about whether data from these services could be used to train its own AI models or shared with technology partners. Jio's stock market debut—a long-awaited event for investors—now depends partly on whether these new AI services can drive growth; the conglomerate's shares are down about 17% this year.