Question 1

Which AI assistant works best in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali or my own language?

Accepted Answer

Start with the assistant you already use. ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude all read and write Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada and Malayalam well enough for everyday questions, and Gemini's web app lists more than 70 languages, including Odia, Assamese and Urdu. Anthropic's own tests put an earlier Claude model's Hindi at 96.7% of its English. To choose, ask the same question in two apps and keep the one whose answer sounds like someone from your region wrote it. Sarvam's Indus app was built for India's 22 scheduled languages and is worth trying for voice and local topics. Expect gaps on Indian culture: OpenAI says its models still have substantial room to improve on IndQA, its test of 2,278 such questions.

Question 2

How do I get better answers when I type in Hinglish or in English letters?

Accepted Answer

Assistants understand Hinglish and Hindi typed in English letters, but they are less reliable with it. A study of real messages to a maternal health service found models did up to 24 points worse on romanized text than on the same languages in their own script, and a 2026 benchmark found results slip further as more English is mixed in. So for anything that matters, type in your language's script using your phone's Hindi or Tamil keyboard, or voice typing. Say how you want the reply: "Answer in simple Marathi, in Devanagari" or "Reply in Hinglish, in English letters". Keeping everyday English words like EMI or deadline is fine. If an answer looks wrong, ask again in native script and compare.

Question 3

Can I talk to an AI out loud in Hindi, Tamil or Marathi instead of typing?

Accepted Answer

Yes. In ChatGPT, open Settings, then Voice, then Language, and pick the language you speak most so it hears you correctly; Hindi has two voices of its own, Leher and Neer. Gemini on your phone supports Hindi, Tamil and other Indian languages, and Gemini Live follows the language you set for Gemini, though in some languages you cannot change the voice. Sarvam's Indus app lets you tap the mic and speak Hindi, Tamil or a mix. The government's Bhashini app turns speech into text and translates between Indian languages, which helps when you are talking with someone who speaks another one. Expect more mistakes with dialects: a 2026 study found even the best systems err on under 10% of standard Hindi words but 20 to 30% in dialects.

Question 4

How do I translate a document or dub a video into my language with AI?

Accepted Answer

For a document, Google Translate's website takes Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel files up to 10 MB, PDFs up to 300 pages, though text inside images is left untranslated. The government's Bhashini offers document and video translation for Indian languages, and ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini will translate a file you upload and follow a list of terms you want kept. For video, YouTube's automatic dubbing turns English videos into Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Punjabi, and lets you review dubs first. Sarvam's Content Studio dubs into Indian languages in your own voice, with the first 30 minutes free, and ElevenLabs covers 90+ languages. Have a fluent speaker check before you publish; India's amended IT Rules require large platforms to label AI-made audio and video.

Question 5

Are Indian-built AI apps like Sarvam's Indus or BharatGen better than ChatGPT?

Accepted Answer

Better at some things. Sarvam's Indus app runs on Sarvam-105B, trained in India for 22 Indian languages, and is strongest for voice in your language and questions about Indian life; it launched as a beta with a waitlist, and at launch you could clear chat history only by deleting your account, so check its settings now. BharatGen's Param2 is an open model for builders, not a chat app. Bhashini is the government's translation and speech service. Ola's Krutrim assistant, Kruti, went offline in April 2026, so check an app is still running before you depend on it. For long documents, research, connected apps and coding, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini still offer more, which is why many people keep one of each.

Question 6

I want to build an app for Indian-language users. What do speech and language APIs cost?

Accepted Answer

The Indian specialists publish rupee prices. Sarvam charges Rs 0.49 a minute for speech-to-text across 22 Indian languages, Rs 1 per 1,000 characters for its Bulbul V4 Flash voices, Rs 2 per 1,000 characters for translation, and Rs 15 per million input tokens for its 105B model, with 100 free credits to test; a phone voice agent starts at Rs 3 a minute at high volume. To host a model yourself, Sarvam-105B is Apache 2.0 and BharatGen's Param2 is open too. Bhashini offers its APIs to organisations that register. Global models work, and ElevenLabs voices cover Hindi, Tamil and more, but Sarvam reports other open models' tokenizers need more tokens per word of Indian text, so price your real messages, in script and in Hinglish, before you commit.

Question 7

Where does AI still get Indian languages wrong, and how do I check its answer?

Accepted Answer

Dialects, names, numbers and culture are where it slips. In AI4Bharat and Josh Talks' Voice of India test, OpenAI's transcription models got over 55% of words wrong in Indian speech, and some models missed two words in three in Bhojpuri and Maithili. Translation can flip meaning: in 2025 Meta's auto-translate turned a Kannada condolence message into one that declared Karnataka's chief minister dead. To check, translate the answer back into English with a second tool and compare, look hard at names, dates and amounts in lakh and crore, and ask the assistant which words it was unsure of. For anything legal, medical or going out in public, have a fluent speaker read it first.

How founders use AI for AI in Indian Languages

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