The second edition of The Tech Horizon, organised by Inc42 and Google Cloud, showcased GenAI’s growth & impact on the Indian startup ecosystem
The country is now home to 100+ native GenAI startups, with more than $600 Mn of funding raised since 2019
Google Cloud’s Vertex AI, along with Llama and Mistral, are set to remain at the forefront of GenAI for R&D and practical applications
Traditional AI/ML has been out there for years, promising mindblowing tech transformation across industries. But the whirlwind of innovations required more speed and depth and fewer technicalities for enterprise users. That did not happen at scale until GenAI (read the OpenAI ecosystem) made a global foray in 2022 and spread rapidly across economies and industries.
GenAI adoption by startups and big enterprises is apparent. The country’s booming startup ecosystem is also in a strong position to harness its advantage as India is now home to 100+ native GenAI startups, with more than $600 Mn of funding since 2019.
In spite of these impressive estimates and worldwide hype, GenAI may not be growing as rapidly as we assume. Along with opportunities have come many paradoxes regarding implementation, deployment, data security and regulation/compliance. To decode all of this, Inc42 partnered with Google Cloud to organise the second edition of The Tech Horizon for a better understanding of the new frontier.
Held in Delhi on June 26, the day-long event was split into three sessions and kicked off with a roundtable titled Elevating Customer Experiences Through AI and Cloud-Driven Analytics. The event featured 30+ C-suiters as attendees who delved deep into AI-GenAI and cloud solutions.
The roundtable was followed by an intriguing fireside chat between InsuranceDekho’s cofounder and CTO, Ish Babbar, and Google Cloud’s sales lead, Dilip Mukkavalli. The chat provided insights into how startups can strategically use AI to scale businesses and amplify customer acquisition.
Finally, there was a knowledge session on How Startups Can Build Faster and More Scalable AI Solutions with Google’s Vertex AI. Similar to the first edition of The Tech Horizon hosted in Bengaluru in May, all attendees had the opportunity to network and collaborate on critical aspects such as GenAI’s value propositions, adoption, use cases and concerns.
Among the key participants of The Tech Horizon II were:
- Sairam Mushyam, VP of data science & analytics, Zupee
- Ankit Sinha, cofounder and CTO, Tagbin
- Vijaykumar Ramakrishna, CTO, Clix Capital
- Vikram Gupta, founder and CEO, Awiros
- Rahul Tyagi, cofounder of Safe Security
- Himanshu Gupta, cofounder, QuickReply.ai
- Ashish Airon, founder, CogniTensor
- Ajay Kadyan, cofounder, Zimyo
- Rayavarapu Narasimha Viswanadh, entrepreneur in residence, Lohum
- Vishal Sharma, CEO of Nuvoretail
- Anirudh Bharadwaj, CTO, Recur Club
- Ashish Arora, customer engineer, Google Cloud India
In Pursuit Of Value: How Startups Are Implementing Excellence Via AI-GenAI, Cloud Solutions
From gaming to policy room: Moderated by OfBusiness cofounder and CBO Nitin Jain, the roundtable started on a high note as Zupee’s Sairam Mushyam unveiled how AI decodes customer behaviour, requirements and interactions to deliver personalised experiences on the casual gaming platform. According to him, developing advanced features, especially a gamer’s persona/preferred environment, and helping build their [gaming] skills are complex tasks and require different ML models to ensure a high mix of AI analytics and creativity.
On the other hand, Tagbin uses AI, VR and other tech stacks to create immersive digital worlds in physical space. These include experiential on-premises museums and LLM-based, prompt-engineered 3D models of cultural and political leaders intuitively interacting with and responding to visitors’ queries.
Tagbin’s Ankit Sinha detailed another use case called the strategy room. “If a state has developed best practices in an area and another state wants to adopt those, AI can do a feasibility study and identify the requirements for successful implementation,” he said.
The fintech playbook: Fintechs like Clix Capital and Recur Club have integrated business learning with AI/ML for fast and risk-free credit underwriting. Also, Clix has moved its entire business to the cloud. “Overall, our turnaround time [TAT] has improved by 60% and IT costs are down 33% due to AI and cloud adoption,” said CTO Vijaykumar Ramakrishna.
Video intelligence for automating ops: The video AI platform Awiros uses deep learning-based CNNs and other core techs to process videos at scale and automate ops through video intelligence.
“Our deployments are running across cameras in European warehouses and automating the operations. Instead of scanning and looking up where a parcel has to go, you can use a camera to know how many packages are unloaded, track which forklift has picked up which packet and get instructions about where the packet should be placed. This is a kind of in-process automation that significantly improves customer experience,” said founder and CEO Vikram Gupta.
Cloud security and sustainability: Given the large file sizes, Awiros uses hybrid technologies to process videos on and off the cloud ecosystem. This led us to the next critical question: How safe is the cloud in this era of hackers?
Rahul Tyagi of Safe Security detailed the startup’s key focus areas: Assessing the probability of a data breach, fixing and patching in case of a breach and auto-calculating the insurance cover to meet cybersecurity costs. The startup also uses a GenAI layer for easy communication to keep senior leadership in the loop.
The conversation then shifted to AI and environmental sustainability. Ashish Airon, of CogniTensor, explained how the startup uses AI agents to help brands go green. The platform has developed Sustain 3P, which measures emissions for companies big and small, provides a thorough comprehension of global compliance standards and generates reports for clients
Lohum’s EIR Rayavarapu Narasimha Viswanadh discussed how AI is used to measure EV battery capacity, raise security alerts and estimate whether these EV cells can be recycled for further use in other industry segments. Also, sudden power cuts tend to harm the infrastructure, and optimisation algorithms are needed to control energy resources.
Among other businesses present at the round table were martech platform Quickreply, HRtech startup Zimyo and ecommerce solution provider NuvoRetail.
How InsuranceDekho’s AI Leap Can Help Bridge The Chasm
The following fireside chat saw Ish Babbar of InsuranceDekho, Dilip Mukkavalli of Google Cloud and Jain of OfBusiness engage in a lively conversation to give the audience a glimpse into the startup’s business intelligence and forward-looking technology approach. Babbar set up the insurance marketplace in 2016, which currently features more than 45 insurers and 600+ policies covering every aspect (life, health, auto and more). It targets Tier II-IV cities and works with 1.5 Lakh agent partners.
The founder cited the abject online penetration of insurance in India – around 4% – and the ambitious goal of getting every Indian insured by 2047, emphasising that the situation might improve if one could buy the right product every time. “Insurance, in itself, is a promise. You won’t know whether you have purchased the right thing until you require it. And the service part is most crucial. There won’t be much policy value until a buyer is serviced,” he observed.
The lack of customer awareness and inadequate tech support also hinder the non-metro customer base. People from Tier II and III still value personal hand-holding but also like the numerous options available on an insurtech platform.
“Now, suppose one is looking for a health plan for a 36-year-old with diabetes and residing at a specific location. If you can solve that and recommend three or four plans, the customer will return and close the deal. All this is doable without GenAI, but it takes time and manual intervention. With AI, it will take only a second, and that can be a game changer,” he added.
Also, getting people to interact differently is the beginning of endless opportunities. The AI layer was only at the backend, but now, it is at the front end to enable smooth communications with virtual assistants. So, the way we buy air tickets may change two years from now. We may use a voice bot instead of culling data through filters.
The only glitch could be the cost, but Mukkavalli disagreed. “Tech is an investment, not a cost. When discussing use cases, we only consider external things, such as customer-facing ones. But what about internal processes, team productivity and profitability balance?”
Advantages Of Vertex AI
The event ended with a knowledge session hosted by Ashish Arora, AI specialist and customer engineer at Google Cloud. As expected, he led the audience to the exciting world of open-source GenAI tools and technologies, revealing the latest from three standout models – Google’s Vertex AI, Meta’s Llama and Mistral AI.
“We have all witnessed the dominance of predictive AI,” Arora said. “But the past six months have seen a remarkable shift towards generative applications. We are now delving into chatbots, vector-based searches, semantic understanding and natural language processing that generates SQL queries based on user intent,” he added.
He also explained that Vertex AI would remain committed to realising GenAI’s potential in real-world scenarios. For context, the Vertex AI programme helps users train and deploy AI applications and customises LLMs for integration with AI solutions.
Elaborating on Vertex AI, Arora emphasised that the platform would go beyond simple content generation. Instead, startups can create intelligent agents capable of generating natural interactions. He would further focus on developing API-based conversational chatbots and unified search experiences.
“The beauty lies in the fact that you don’t need to be an algorithm or ML wizard to use these functionalities,” he beamed.
The Tech Horizon II served as a powerhouse for discussions around the pressing need to embrace AI solutions and their transformative use cases. This sentiment also aligns well with industry trends. A 2023 NASSCOM report on Indian tech startups also stated that 70% of founders planned to integrate AI into their solutions, with GenAI as a catalyst for this adoption.
As tech companies abroad continue to plough billions of dollars in AI applications and the Wall Street is bankrolling the frenzy, the vision of a GenAI-powered technology era is rapidly rising. Goldman Sachs seems sceptical, though, and the big question is: After the dotcom bubble bust, has the ‘next big what’ finally arrived?
Catch a glimpse of the the action-packed day at The Tech Horizon, Delhi Edition!
