India advances towards an AI-ready digital future: Report
New Delhi, July 10
India is shifting from foundational digitisation toward more integrated, accessible and AI‑ready citizen services, with a Digital Government Index score of 58.2, a report said on Friday.
The report from US tech giant Adobe said that India's digital government journey entered a new phase. where focus expanded beyond digitising services, to making them more intuitive, accessible and AI-ready.
"By improving discoverability, personalisation and content quality, ministries can deliver better citizen experiences while ensuring trusted government information remains visible in an AI-first world," said Venu Juvvala, Head, Customer Experience Orchestration business, Adobe India.
India's digital transformation continues to be shaped by initiatives such as Digital India, India Stack and Gati Shakti, the report said.
"While progress varies across ministries, mobile experience improved by 1.1 per cent, reflecting India's mobile-first approach and the growing adoption of platforms such as UMANG and DigiLocker," it added.
Customer experience eased 3.7 per cent, highlighting opportunities to strengthen accessibility, readability and overall usability.
Digital Self‑Service was the strongest dimension at 62.2, up 2 per cent, driven primarily by advances in multilingual access and language translation.
The 2025 Digital Government Index for India evaluated government websites across customer experience, site performance and digital self‑service, and introduced new assessments of AI readiness and personalisation capabilities.
The study, which combined user testing, third‑party technical audits and content assessments, found accessibility eased 4.1 per cent and readability dropped 23.7 per cent, underscoring the need to simplify content and improve structure.
The AI readiness among assessed ministries scored between 51.1 and 73.1.
Official government websites demonstrated strong trust and authority, and improvements in technical structure and discoverability will help ensure reliable public information remains visible in AI-powered search and digital assistants, the report said.
The report also highlighted Indian Railways' integration of Bhashini, the national AI-powered language platform, to support conversational chatbots that help citizens navigate services and enquiries across Indian languages.
— IANS
Reader Comments
Digital India is truly transforming governance. I use DigiLocker for my documents and UMANG for utility payments—it's so convenient. The 58.2 score shows we're on the right track. But the readability drop of 23.7% is alarming. Government websites need to be simpler for the average Indian.
All this AI talk is fine, but what about internet connectivity in villages? My parents in rural Karnataka can barely load a website, forget AI chatbots. We need basic infrastructure first. The Digital Government Index is good for cities—the real test is in Tier-3 towns and villages.
The personalisation aspect is interesting. Imagine a government portal that understands your needs in Hindi or Tamil and shows you relevant schemes automatically. That would be game-changing! Also happy to see mobile experience improved—India is truly mobile-first. 🇮🇳
While I appreciate the progress, the 23.7% drop in readability is a serious concern. Government websites are notorious for using complex jargon. If we want truly inclusive digital services, we need content that a 10th-pass citizen can understand. AI readiness is useless if the basics aren't right.
The Indian Railways Bhashini integration is truly next-level. I travelled recently and used the chatbot in Hindi—it was smooth. This is how technology should serve people, especially those who aren't comfortable with English. Kudos to the digital team! 👏
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