Gujarat cooperative leverages decades of structured dairy data to roll out AI-powered advisory platform across 18,500 villages

India’s largest dairy cooperative, Amul, has taken a decisive step into artificial intelligence with the launch of ‘Sarlaben’, an AI-powered virtual assistant designed to provide real-time advisory support to dairy farmers across more than 18,500 villages in Gujarat. The initiative, inaugurated by Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, marks a significant milestone in the cooperative’s digital transformation journey and reflects a broader push to connect grassroots milk producers with advanced analytics and precision advisory tools.

Sarlaben is powered by one of the most comprehensive and structured dairy data ecosystems in India, built over decades of cooperative operations. The platform draws on more than 200 crore annual milk procurement transactions, veterinary treatment records covering nearly 3 crore cattle, approximately 70 lakh artificial inseminations conducted each year, and fodder production mapping supported by ISRO satellite data. By integrating these vast datasets, the AI assistant is able to generate personalised, multilingual guidance tailored to individual farmer profiles. The system provides advisory on cattle nutrition, vaccination schedules, disease prevention, medical treatment, breeding practices and access to relevant government schemes, ensuring recommendations are contextual, data-driven and actionable.

The platform has been designed with inclusivity at its core. Sarlaben will be available through the Amul Farmer mobile application, which is already used by more than 10 lakh members. To ensure access across varying levels of digital literacy, the AI assistant will also function through voice calls, enabling feature phone and landline users to receive guidance. Integrated with Amul’s Automatic Milk Collection System (AMCS) and the Pashudhan app, the platform aims to strengthen real-time decision-making at the village level, improve animal productivity, enhance disease management and ultimately increase farmer incomes.

Jayen Mehta, Managing Director of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), said the rollout reflects the cooperative’s longstanding commitment to data discipline and farmer-centric innovation. “Amul AI represents decades of structured, verified cooperative data. Our objective is to deliver dependable information directly to farmers, enabling timely and effective action,” he noted.

With a procurement network exceeding 350 lakh litres of milk per day and a base of 36 lakh milk producers — many of them women — Amul’s digital pivot has the potential to significantly deepen farmer engagement while reinforcing operational resilience across its vast supply chain. The launch comes at a time when digital transformation is accelerating across agriculture and dairy value chains, with artificial intelligence, satellite mapping and predictive analytics increasingly viewed as essential tools to drive productivity, traceability, sustainability and climate resilience.

If scaled effectively, Sarlaben could serve as a model for other cooperatives and private sector players seeking to integrate precision advisory systems into everyday field operations. By combining cooperative scale with artificial intelligence, Amul is positioning itself not merely as a dairy brand but as a digitally integrated agri-tech ecosystem shaping the future of India’s rural economy.