ET Most Innovative AI Product Awards 2026: Honouring the innovations powering India's next economy

At the core of the ET Most Innovative AI Product Awards is a thoughtfully designed category framework that reflects where artificial intelligence is driving the most significant shifts across India’s economy. These 11 categories go beyond simple classification, mapping the sectors where AI is delivering tangible, measurable impact.

The ET Most Innovative AI Product Awards 2026brings them together into a unified structure that captures the full breadth of AI’s influence spanning both established industries and emerging frontiers, and offering a comprehensive view of how AI is actively reshaping business and innovation in India.

1. BFSI Transformation

This category captures how AI is reshaping the core of the financial system from risk assessment to customer experience. It recognises institutions that are not merely digitizing, but fundamentally rethinking how financial services operate to scale.

2. ITES & Technology Services
India’s technology services backbone finds its place here. This category reflects how AI is moving beyond implementation into strategic capability where service providers are designing scalable, repeatable AI led solutions for global enterprises.

3. FinTech & Payments
Focused on disruption, this category highlights products that are redefining how money moves. It represents the new financial ecosystem faster, more intelligent, and built around user centric innovation.

4. Marketing & Consumer Engagement
AI’s role in shaping customer journeys comes to the forefront here. This category acknowledges solutions that transform how brands understand reach and retain consumers through precision and personalization.

5. Cybersecurity & Risk Management
As digital threats evolve, so must security systems. This category recognises AI-driven approaches that enhance security, detect anomalies, and manage risk in real time making resilience a competitive advantage.

6. Healthcare & MedTech
This category reflects AI’s growing influence in improving outcomes. From diagnostics to patient care, it captures innovations that make healthcare more accurate, accessible, and efficient.

7. Retail & Consumer Experience
This category recognises organisations leveraging AI to transform the way India shops, enabling hyper-personalised experiences, optimising retail operations, and converting consumer data into meaningful interactions that drive loyalty, boost spending, and encourage repeat engagement.

8. E-commerce & Quick Commerce
Speed and scale define this segment. This category focuses on how AI powers the infrastructure behind modern commerce optimising everything from search and pricing to delivery and demand prediction.

9. Supply Chain & Manufacturing

Operational intelligence is at the core of this category. It highlights how AI is building smarter, more resilient supply chains and manufacturing systems driving efficiency from factory floors to last-mile delivery.

10. Life Sciences & Pharma
This category moves into the frontier of scientific innovation. It recognises how AI is accelerating research, transforming drug discovery and enabling breakthroughs previously out of reach.

11. AI Special Product/ innovation
Reserved for what doesn’t fit neatly elsewhere, this category represents pure innovation. It acknowledges breakthrough AI products that challenge existing boundaries and define entirely new possibilities.

Together, these 11 categories form a comprehensive view of AI’s role in India today not as experimental technology, but as a business critical force. Each category isolates a domain where AI is no longer optional, but foundational.

What emerges is not just a list of sectors, but a narrative: AI is moving from isolated innovation to embedded infrastructure powering decisions, driving efficiency and reshaping industries from within.

And in recognising this shift, the awards do more than celebrate success they define the benchmarks for what meaningful AI innovation looks like.

Nominate your AI innovation now. The Early bird offer is till 30th April 2026.