While consent managers under the DPDPA make preferences easier to track and manage, the burden remains on users to understand privacy risks. An AI privacy assistant can bridge this gap by explaining rights and consequences in a language and context that the user understands.

While most of us would say that we care about our privacy, we neither have the information nor the resources to protect it.

India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDPA) has reset privacy expectations across the board. Companies must take strict measures to protect personal data, and citizens now have real rights over the information they share. All of this is unfolding at a time when AI is getting more capable and more deeply embedded in the apps and services we use every day. These shifts have created a new market for AI solutions to help companies with DPDPA compliance, like live dashboards that show what personal data is being collected across the organisation and automated alerts for any data breaches.

However, we are not seeing a similar wave of innovation to support citizens in understanding the law or exercising their rights. This imbalance matters, since the new adjudicatory body for privacy — the Data Protection Board (DPB) — has limited powers to act on its own and depends heavily on user complaints. Without aware and empowered citizens, the DPB’s ability to enforce the law may remain underutilised.

Understanding privacy policies an uphill task

This gap shows up constantly in our everyday digital lives. While most of us would say that we care about our privacy, we neither have the information nor the resources to protect it. We interact with hundreds of service providers without knowing what data each of them holds or how they use it. Apps nudge us to share more information, providing little clarity around whether it’s optional or how sharing this data may affect us.

Understanding privacy policies means reading through dense legal documents, which very few have the ability to do. We see headlines about data breaches and companies ‘stealing our data’ and yet we find ourselves sharing information anyway. We have reached a stage of quiet complacency — stuck between mistrusting service providers, yet depending on them for everyday life, and not having the information or bandwidth to protect ourselves. This is a problem begging for a solution. If we already use AI for everything from meal planning to summarising complex documents, then why are we still navigating privacy alone?

Let’s imagine an AI assistant for privacy that helps users navigate privacy choices through their digital lives, and that works entirely in their interest. Users set simple rules around what data they never want to share, what permissions they’re okay with, and what kind of explanation they want before sharing their personal data. Rules are set in plain language or even through voice commands, such as “warn me when an app wants access to my microphone”, “never automatically store or share financial data with third parties”, or even “tell me if a service has had a recent data breach before I enter sensitive information”.

Based on these rules, the assistant guides users through privacy decisions as they arise. This could mean alerting them to privacy policy updates that expand third-party access to their personal data, or flagging when a website permanently stores sensitive documents that most people assume are deleted after upload. Over time, the assistant also learns from user behaviour and adapts its guidance. For instance, if a user regularly enters credit card details manually, the assistant alerts them if an app tries to store payment information by default, and suggests saving this as a permanent rule.

If prompted, the assistant also explains the consequences of a choice in plain language. For example, if a banking app updates its policy to share account details with new partners, the user can ask “Can I decline?”. The assistant will outline their rights, why the bank needs this data, and what features might become inaccessible if they decline. More importantly, because it’s grounded in each user’s privacy preferences, the assistant can provide these explanations based on the risks that they usually avoid and the trade-offs they are comfortable making. This helps users understand not just what’s happening with their data, but what each option or action means for them personally.

AI can help you focus on decisions that truly matter

At the core of this idea is the recognition that people perceive privacy risks differently and want different levels of detail about how their data is being handled. A privacy assistant is not meant to decide what is objectively ‘safe’, but to reflect each user’s comfort levels and apply those boundaries consistently across digital interactions. While consent managers under the DPDPA make preferences easier to track and manage, the burden remains on users to understand and interpret privacy risks. An AI privacy assistant can bridge this gap by explaining rights and consequences in a language and context that the user understands, while also handling routine, repetitive tasks. This is precisely the benefit we want to see from AI — to reduce manual friction and free human attention for decisions that truly matter.

For the first time, India has both the regulatory imperative to empower users and the technological capability to turn ideas into tangible solutions. An AI-powered privacy assistant is just one example. For our new privacy regime to truly work, we need more focus, funding, and imagination towards innovation that enables the people whose data is at stake.

Shreya Ramann is a lawyer and independent consultant specialising in digital trust, data protection and responsible AI.