Artificial Intelligence isn’t just generating text and images anymore. It’s identifying where people will die on India’s highways before crashes happen, and the deployment is already underway.
Piyush Tewari, CEO of SaveLIFE Foundation, laid out the scope of AI’s physical impact at the 2026 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos today, declaring that “AI can make a big change in physical life and for humanity by even predicting road crashes.” He said his organization has deployed AI-trained cameras across Indian highways and intersections that analyse traffic patterns to identify potential collision points before accidents occur.
Partner Content
The timing matters. Road crashes cost India between 3-5% of its GDP annually according to Tewari’s comments at WEF, hitting families just emerging from poverty the hardest. India accounts for over a million road deaths in the past decade, a crisis that inspired Tewari to found SaveLIFE in 2008 after losing a young cousin in a road crash.
But the approach represents a fundamental shift in how road safety is managed. “The decisions and the thought process that might take months sometimes can be done in hours or minutes using AI,” Tewari said during his Davos session. Rather than investigating crashes after they occur, AI systems analyse real-time traffic patterns, road conditions, and historical data to flag high-risk situations preemptively.
The Indian government is backing the deployment. Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari recently announced an initiative where AI will interpret road crash data and provide faster insights, accelerating the shift from reactive investigation to proactive intervention.
Tewari, who is participating in AI and social innovation sessions at WEF, emphasized the technology’s practical application: “Can we predict road crashes by bringing some data points together? So, there’s definitely a huge amount of application, and the signs are very much positive.”
VIDEO | Davos, Switzerland: Founder and CEO of SaveLIFE Foundation Piyush Tewari says, "At SaveLIFE we have trained cameras using AI, fixed with drones that preemptively identify parked vehicles and also used at road intersections to identify conflicts and to heat map… pic.twitter.com/GcRyCCbKfK
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) January 19, 2026
What sets India’s approach apart is the focus on accessibility. “We have to make AI more accessible to the public, and the Government of India’s mission is also to make it more accessible,” Tewari said, noting SaveLIFE’s work deploying the technology “at a very, very grassroots level” rather than limiting it to premium infrastructure.
The foundation’s “zero fatality corridors” model identifies India’s most dangerous highways and applies targeted interventions based on AI analysis. SaveLIFE is now positioning these solutions as “Make in India” exports for other developing nations facing similar rapid highway expansion and rising death tolls.
The message from Davos cuts through the noise around AI’s potential: the technology’s value isn’t measured in chatbot responses or image generation. The real measure is saving lives by acting faster and smarter in the real world.
Louis Eriakha
