How is India regulating artificial intelligence?

India has no single dedicated AI law so far. Instead, it has chosen a light-touch, "pro-innovation" approach.

Key developments:

• In November 2025, MeitY released the India AI Governance Guidelines. They set out principles such as trust, people-first design, fairness, accountability and safety, and recommended relying on existing laws where possible, with targeted rules for specific risks, rather than a broad new AI law now.
• The guidelines proposed institutions to coordinate AI governance across ministries and an AI Safety Institute to study risks.
• Existing laws that already apply to AI include the IT Act, 2000, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (see the DPDP Rules), consumer protection law and criminal law.
• The government has also moved to require labelling of AI-generated content and to tackle deepfakes through amendments to the IT Rules.

Sector regulators are adding their own rules, such as the RBI for AI in finance and the National Medical Commission for healthcare advertising (see the NMC decision).

India's approach differs from the European Union's, which passed a detailed, risk-based law. See the EU AI Act for comparison.