Artificial intelligence is poised to transform India’s healthcare system more deeply than any other sector, said Shobana Kamineni, executive chairperson of Apollo HealthCo and promoter director of Apollo Hospital.

“We don’t have enough doctors, nurses, or healthcare facilities. But we have enough people who are tech-enabled and can be upskilled,” she said.

The veteran executive, the daughter of Prathap C Reddy, the founder and chairman of Apollo Hospitals, referred to Nobel Laureate Demis Hassabis saying no invention in the world will happen without AI in future. “So, the next vaccine or the ability to cure the disease will be AI-based because it’s so much faster, it crunches so much more data.” Although digital penetration in India remains a challenge, Kamineni pointed out that AI is no longer defined by an app, and telemedicine is just a phone call away.

“It’s just a phone call to an AI system which can do the consultation and quickly send the summary to the doctor. And 80% of India’s population have access to basic phones today.” She pointed out that India’s demographic challenges, combined with its digital readiness, make it an ideal testbed for AI-driven healthcare models.

“We’re not going to solve the problem with brick-and-mortar hospitals. We’re going to solve it with smart devices and intelligent infrastructure,” she said, noting Apollo’s strategy of pushing AI across both clinical and non-clinical workflows.

The veteran executive, who is spearheading the healthcare giant’s digital and AI-first initiatives across diagnostics, patient engagement, and hospital operations, said GenAI is enabling 7,000 Apollo doctors to improve productivity by 50%-85%.

“I can handle my 1 million patients a day with the help of technology.” She emphasized the need for ethical deployment and better regulation around patient data usage and AI safety, particularly in sensitive contexts like oncology, mental health, and chronic disease management.

“We must make sure that the data that’s being used to train these models reflects the Indian genome and disease profile. That’s a gap today. We cannot simply use models trained on Western populations and assume they will work here.”

Kamineni also said Apollo is investing in AI-enabled doctors’ assistants, remote diagnostics, and decision-support tools for clinicians to improve turnaround times and reduce burnout.

“Imagine a junior doctor who can consult an AI assistant for a differential diagnosis, or a nurse who gets real-time alerts on patient vitals before a critical event. That’s not the future. It’s already happening.”

On the macro level, she called for public-private collaboration in creating a national AI-health data backbone - one that respects patient privacy but enables research and innovation at scale.

“This is not about competition, it’s about cooperation. If India gets this right, we can build the most inclusive and efficient healthcare system in the world.”