Sarvam Indus AI is India’s most ambitious homegrown AI chatbot yet — a sovereign AI assistant built to take on ChatGPT and Gemini on their own turf, but in 22+ Indian languages. Launched by Bengaluru startup Sarvam AI, the Indus app understands the way Indians actually talk — switching from English to Hindi to Tamil mid-conversation — and runs on a model built from scratch for India. Here’s everything you need to know: who built it, what it does, how it compares to ChatGPT and Gemini, and how to download it.
Sarvam Indus AI in 30 seconds
🇮🇳 What: India’s sovereign AI chatbot app (Indus), rival to ChatGPT & Gemini
🏢 Who: Sarvam AI — first startup under the IndiaAI Mission
🗣️ Languages: 22+ Indian languages, switch mid-chat
🧠 Powered by: Sarvam-105B sovereign model
📲 Where: Free on App Store, Play Store & web
What is Sarvam Indus AI?
Sarvam Indus AI — usually just called “Indus” — is a conversational AI chatbot app made in India. Think of it as an Indian answer to ChatGPT and Google Gemini, but designed first and foremost for Indian languages, accents, and everyday context. The Indus app launched in beta on February 20, 2026 and is powered by Sarvam’s own large language model, Sarvam-105B.
The headline trick of Indus is multilingual fluency. You can start a question in English, slip into Hindi halfway through, and ask a follow-up in Tamil or Marathi — and Indus keeps up. This is the kind of code-switching Indians do naturally every day, and it’s exactly where global models often stumble.
Who is behind Sarvam AI?
Sarvam AI was founded in August 2023 by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, both previously part of AI4Bharat at IIT Madras. Raghavan also helped scale Aadhaar at UIDAI, so building tech for a billion-plus Indians is familiar territory. The startup raised around $41 million in seed and Series A funding (led by Lightspeed, with Peak XV and Khosla Ventures).
Crucially, in April 2025 Sarvam became the first startup selected under the government’s IndiaAI Mission — a Rs 10,370 crore programme — to build an indigenous foundational model. That backing is why Indus is often described as a “sovereign” AI: built, trained, and hosted for India rather than imported from Silicon Valley. Business Today called it “the Sarvam moment” for Indian AI.
Key features of the Indus app
22+ Indian languages, switch mid-chat
Indus handles conversations across 22+ Indian languages and lets you switch languages mid-conversation — English to Hindi to Kannada — without losing context. This is the core strength of the Indus app.
Built on Sarvam-105B (and Sarvam-30B)
The app runs on Sarvam’s 105-billion-parameter model. It’s smaller than the largest global frontier models, but tuned for accuracy, efficiency, and Indian cultural relevance rather than raw size.
Sarvam Vision for Indic OCR
Sarvam Vision reads documents in English and 22 Indian languages. Sarvam claims leading results on its Indic OCR benchmark against models like Gemini 3 Pro, Claude Opus 4.5 and GPT-5.2 — useful for forms, bills, and regional-language paperwork.
App Store, Play Store and web
Indus is available free to download on iOS, Android and the web. Finnish phone maker HMD even bundled Indus onto a new smartphone for the Indian market in May 2026.
Sarvam Indus AI vs ChatGPT vs Gemini
| Factor | Sarvam Indus AI | ChatGPT | Gemini |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | India-first | Global | Global |
| Indian languages | 22+, mid-chat switch | Many, less tuned | Many, less tuned |
| Model | Sarvam-105B (sovereign) | GPT-5.x | Gemini 3.5 |
| Data hosting | India / sovereign | Global | Global |
| Price | Free app | Free + paid tiers | Free + paid tiers |
How to download and use Indus
Getting started with Indus takes under a minute:
- iPhone: Search “Indus” by Sarvam on the App Store and install.
- Android: Search “Indus” on the Google Play Store and install.
- Web: Open the Indus chat on the official Sarvam AI website.
- Start chatting: Type or speak in any Indian language — try switching languages mid-question to see the difference.
If you also use paid AI tools, see our guide to the Google AI Ultra plan in India and our roundup of the best AI tools for Indian students.
Why Sarvam Indus AI matters for India
Most AI Indians use today is built abroad, hosted abroad, and tuned for English first. Indus flips that: an Indian model, for Indian languages, with data sovereignty as a design goal. Bloomberg framed it as a bid to break Big Tech’s grip on India’s AI market.
For the next billion users coming online in regional languages, an AI that speaks Bhojpuri, Telugu, or Assamese as a first-class citizen — not an afterthought — could matter more than benchmark scores. That’s the real promise of Sarvam Indus AI.
Sarvam Indus AI FAQs
Is Sarvam Indus AI free?
Yes. The Indus app is free to download and use on iOS, Android and the web. Sarvam may add paid tiers later, but the core chatbot is currently free.
Which languages does Indus support?
Indus supports 22+ Indian languages and lets you switch between them mid-conversation, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada and more, alongside English.
Is Sarvam Indus AI better than ChatGPT or Gemini?
For Indian-language conversations, regional document reading, and data sovereignty, Indus is very competitive. For broad general-purpose tasks, global frontier models like ChatGPT and Gemini still hold an edge in raw capability.
Who owns Sarvam AI?
Sarvam AI is a Bengaluru-based startup founded in 2023 by Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar, backed by investors including Lightspeed, Peak XV and Khosla Ventures, and supported under the IndiaAI Mission.
Is my data safe with Indus?
Sarvam positions Indus as a sovereign AI with India-focused hosting, which is one of its selling points versus global apps. As with any AI app, avoid sharing sensitive personal or financial details in chats.
What is Sarvam-105B?
Sarvam-105B is Sarvam’s 105-billion-parameter foundational model that powers the Indus app, built from scratch for India’s languages and optimised for accuracy and cultural relevance rather than sheer scale.