The Business Software Alliance (BSA), a global industry association representing companies such as Microsoft, IBM, AWS, Adobe, Salesforce, and SAP, has urged the Indian government to introduce an exception for “text and data mining” in the country’s copyright law. The group also called for the removal of restrictions on cross-border data transfers and greater access to “non-sensitive high-value government datasets.”
The BSA has further requested that the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, should explicitly support the processing of personal data for AI training. Although publicly available personal data is currently excluded from the Act’s scope, experts have warned that ambiguities in the law could create compliance risks. They have urged revisions to allow unconditional processing of such data for training or fine-tuning AI models.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had earlier released draft rules to implement the DPDP Act, but they have not yet been officially notified. Alongside these recommendations, the BSA has suggested developing an open industry standard for authenticating and verifying digital content. These proposals were part of the group’s report titled Enterprise AI Adoption Agenda for India, unveiled at an AI pre-summit forum in New Delhi on Thursday, 6 November.
The forum was one of 800 events leading up to the India AI Impact Summit, scheduled for February 2026, which will be the first major AI summit to be hosted in the global South.
During the event, S. Krishnan, Secretary, MeitY, said that the effect of AI on jobs in India would be limited because white-collar employment represents a smaller share of the country’s total workforce. “Many countries of the world have a lot more people who are engaged in office-oriented work than we have in India. Many of those are going to be replaced. White collar jobs in India are still a limited proportion of the total number of jobs that we have,” he said.
Krishnan added that AI should be seen as a tool to improve productivity rather than a threat to employment. His remarks come amid global layoffs linked to AI, including by major technology firms.
Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary, MeitY, said that the government is working with industry partners to ensure AI coding tools enhance the output of human engineers instead of replacing them.
BSA’s CEO, Victoria Espinel, said the organisation’s recommendations reflect “real-world feedback from industry leaders about the opportunities for India, as well as the challenges for industry to address in partnership with the government.”
A recent government think tank report estimated that AI adoption could add 500 to 600 billion dollars to India’s GDP by 2035 through improved productivity and efficiency.
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