Talking Tech: How Voice and Vernacular Are Powering India’s Next Digital Wave

India has been experiencing a rapid digital transformation over the past few years. Amongst various enablers, the voice and vernacular adoption have played a key role, which has transformed both consumer engagement and business strategies, creating new reach and unlocking new growth opportunities in the regional markets. 700 million smart phones, low-cost internet and linguistic diversity have thrown challenges but unparalleled opportunities, bypassing the traditional roadblocks of literacy and language.

We all know that almost 85% of Bharat’s population is not fluent in English yet digitally connected. This means we need a solution that helps them converse and communicate in their native language. India has always celebrated its diversity. 22 official languages, 121 scheduled languages, and more than 19500 dialects showcase that English is a minuscule part of our country. Even GoI’s Bhaishini programme maintains a database of 22 Indian languages and is aimed at bridging the language gaps digitally.

The recent IAMAI report highlighted that 98% of internet users accessed content in local languages in 2024. Even in urban India, 57% of users prefer internet access in local languages.No wonder, 63% ecommerce orders are from tier 2 and beyond cities; rural India, often called Bharat, has 20% more internet users compared to bigger cities and 60% of first-time shoppers are from smaller towns. The digital India revolution is no longer restricted to the urban and metro cities, rather it is successfully penetrating in the smaller and even remotest cities now. From Salem to Saharanpur and Pune to Pilani, technology has blurred all the boundaries.

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A basic ‘English-first, urban-first’ design principle does not work. Users in Bharat are starkly different from users residing in urban areas, in terms of earning and spending patterns.  Today, 1 out of every 3 queries raised on the internet is via speaking and not typing. This indicates that India’s digital future won’t be typed but spoken. From navigation and shopping to listening to news and information search, 55% of India’s voice-command users are from rural areas.

While voice and vernacular adoption began as a bridge for tier-2 and tier-3 users overcoming literacy and typing barriers, however this trend is becoming pervasive in urban cities as well. With voice searches in India growing at a staggering 270% year-on-year, AI-powered speech recognition, natural language processing, and contextual understanding have turned voice into the most natural way of interacting with technology. From urban professionals juggling their busy lives to rural entrepreneurs running businesses single-handedly, talking to technology feels faster, more intuitive, and deeply personal.

The rise of wearable and smart assistant devices that listen, adapt, and respond to their surroundings—has only amplified this movement. What Alexa and Google started in our houses has now become everyday behavior, where conversations with machines feel as effortless as conversations with people across all age groups. For business owners across smaller towns who are also ‘one man army’, voice searches are easier than typing or reading.

The varied literacy levels, typing proficiency in English, comfort level with using technology and a cultural preference for spoken communication reflect that Bharat-first design needs to be voice and vernacular-inclined.  Aligned with this, India AI Mission is focusing on developing foundational models that are primarily trained on voice data, as voice will be the primary and most natural way in which people will interact with AI.

On one hand, the voice-first, vernacular-first is making retail and buying decisions for millions of internet users from Bharat. On the other hand, due to deeper customer insights, businesses are seeing tremendous gains in conversions, service quality, retention and cost efficiency. All of this leads to significant economic gains across sectors, be it e-commerce, healthcare, education, financial inclusion and many more. The domino effect is seen in reduced friction and much improved engagement and digital transactions across industries.

We are witnessing increased use cases of voice-based product discovery (prompts like Noida mein ache restaurant btaiye, 10,000 ke andar kaun sa acha phone hai?) Voice assistants, especially in rural and multilingual communities, are helping in creating personalized experience and better conversions. Voice commerce is enabling customers to do their complete journey from product search to order placement to making payments bypassing language and typing barriers.

Similarly, seamless customers on-boarding, their training and tutorials, managing the notifications and communication in vernacular languages on various marketplaces and e-commerce platforms have been helping millions of businesses. Then, there are Vernacular Service Bots, handling customer complaints, tickets, deliveries, payments and various status updates. Most of the marketplaces and e-commerce platforms use these bots to manage volumes of emails, chats etc. 

If this is the pace at which customers are adopting voice and vernacular, then businesses will also have to fast-paced implementation of voice-first culture at their end. Voice-first interfaces should be the business priority. With 75% of new internet users preferring content in their native language, the app or website should be able to support voice commerce.

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Since voice nuances are much different from typed ones, voice SEO in AI-powered search engines, vernacular first apps and platforms with regional languages have to be the priority. It doesn’t mean just a mere Google translation, but a complete understanding of colloquial language, dialect, culture, habits, something we can say as wholesome localization. Already businesses are making strides to cater to vernacular-speaking users, across sectors and this is only expected to grow. 

Enterprises need to rewire their business models and build solutions to democratize opportunities for every Indian. Solutions that don’t feel translated with an English-first mindset, that can cater to changing preferences, weather, habitat, literacy levels. Basically, solutions that make users feel at home. Bharat-first means Matcha but in Kulhad!

Voice and vernacular-first is not merely another tech innovation, rather it is creating immense digital transformation, across social and linguistic diversities in the country. The businesses that invest in these solutions will be able to create newer opportunities, being the first ones to penetrate the untapped segments. Besides creating values for themselves, such businesses will also help in building an ecosystem that will go a long way in enabling millions of people to take advantage of this digital evolution irrespective of their demographic divides.

Dinesh Gulati is the COO at IndiaMART InterMESH Limited.