When tech meets empathy: Inside ARMMAN's AI-driven maternal care model - The Economic Times
Published 21 hours ago• 4 minute read
When tech meets empathy: Inside ARMMAN’s AI-driven maternal care model
By , ET Online
Through Kilkari and mMitra, Mumbai-based ARMMAN, in collaboration with Google DeepMind, is leveraging AI to better maternal health outcomes in India.
(Advancing Reduction in Mortality and Morbidity of Mothers, Children and Neonates), a Mumbai-based non-profit organisation (NGO) dedicated to improving maternal and child health. In partnership with Google DeepMind and the Indian government, ARMMAN is harnessing AI to ensure that every call delivering vital health information to mothers truly counts.
For years, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has partnered with ARMMAN to implement Kilkari, considered the world’s largest mobile-based maternal health information program. Kilkari delivers weekly, time-sensitive audio messages about pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare to new and expecting mothers from the second trimester until a year after delivery free of charge.
According to the government, over the past decade, Kilkari has reached more than 60 million women and children across 27 states and Union Territories (UTs). But has it achieved its intended results? Not entirely, shows the latest data.
Milind Tambe, Director, AI for Social Good, Google DeepMind, says, “Despite its scale, Kilkari faced a critical hurdle: participation rates were dropping by about 23%, even after multiple call attempts. Women who missed several calls were automatically dropped from the program, limiting the reach of crucial health information.”
To address this, Tambe’s team partnered with ARMMAN to develop an AI model that predicts the best times to reach each woman. By analysing anonymised call behaviours, both individual and collective, the AI model learns when each mother is most likely to answer her phone.
According to Tambe, a pilot study in Odisha involving 17,500 Kilkari participants demonstrated the power of this approach. According to the NGO, the AI-driven scheduling led to a statistically significant improvement in call pickup rates, up to 12% higher for certain time slots, ensuring more mothers received life-saving information. This personalised scheduling marks a shift from one-size-fits-all outreach to data-driven, tailored interventions.
“AI has proven to be a force multiplier for our efforts, enabling us to reach women in far more effective and resource-optimal ways than ever before… pushing us closer to our Sustainable Development Goals,” says Aparna Hegde, founder of ARMMAN.
ARMMAN staff making health information calls (Image: ARMMAN)
The success of AI in Kilkari builds on earlier work in ARMMAN’s mMitra program, which serves 350,000 women in Maharashtra. Here, AI was used to identify participants most at risk of disengaging from the program. These women were prioritised for additional outreach, including in-person support from call centre staff and community partners.
The results were striking. About 30% of high-risk participants were retained and continued to receive vital health information. A health impact assessment found that women prioritised by the AI model were 22% more likely to take iron supplements, 28% more likely to take calcium tablets, and nearly 9% more effective at tracking their babies’ birth weights—key indicators of maternal and infant health.
The integration of AI into maternal health programs is not just a technological feat: it’s a life-saving intervention. Studies estimate that Kilkari alone saved nearly 14,000 lives across 13 states between 2014 and 2019, at a cost per life saved well below India’s GDP per capita. The program’s cost-effectiveness and scalability have made it a model for public health innovation.
But the impact goes beyond health metrics. ARMMAN’s leadership is of the view that its outreach has sparked social change, empowering women to demand better healthcare and rights for their daughters. Families and communities are increasingly recognising the importance of women’s health, which is leading to broader shifts in attitudes and behaviours.
Buoyed by these successes, ARMMAN and Google DeepMind are now exploring nationwide deployment of AI-driven interventions in Kilkari and beyond.
Further, the models developed are being open-sourced, with the hope that changemakers across India and the world will adapt them to address similar challenges in other sectors. “India’s fight against maternal mortality is far from over. But the fusion of AI and grassroots outreach offers a beacon of hope. By making every call count, ARMMAN and its partners are not only saving lives—they are rewriting the story of maternal health in India, one mother at a time,” Tambe sums up.
