Bhavish Aggarwal-Led Krutrim’s Chatbot Raises Eyebrows Over Inaccuracies

Just a day after its launch, the ChatGPT-like chatbot launched by Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal-led GenAI unicorn Krutrim received flak on social media.

While some criticised the chatbot for not being trained properly, many others highlighted inaccurate results given by the homegrown AI chatbot.

This was despite Aggarwal’s mention on X that the newly launched AI chatbot is in its beta phase and will go through multiple fixes.

Notably, the newly launched chatbot showed multiple inaccurate results for general queries, mathematical problems, and logical reasoning. While it showed striking similarities to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, it seems to lack the latter’s precision.

More criticism surfaced when the chatbot, in a query related to its creation, answered that it was created by ChatGPT. While it has been touted as the Indian rival of ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, the initial results have raised doubts.

A number of netizens also complained that the chatbot was not ready for a public rollout and needed updates.

Launched on February 26, the AI chatbot is Krutrim’s first product. Its working is similar to that of ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.

“This is a start for us and our first-generation product. Lots more to come and this will also improve significantly as we build on this base” Aggarwal said in a post on X.

“While some hallucinations will be there but much lower for Indian contexts than other global platforms. And we will be working overtime to find and fix,” he wrote.

As the competition for GenAI dominance intensifies, many experts and investors have contended that, up to this point, the landscape remains largely dominated by big tech.

Therefore, Krutrim emerged as a beacon of hope for startups trying to establish a presence in the GenAI space.

Krutrim unveiled its AI models in December last year. At the time, the startup also showcased the AI chatbot, which functions similarly to other open-source large language models (LLM) such as ChatGPT and Meta’s Llama 2.

Besides global players like OpenAI, Google, Meta, Elon Musk-backed xAI, it competes with domestic players such as Bharat GPT by CoRover.ai, Pragna by Soket Labs, Tech Mahindra-backed Project Indus, and Lightspeed-backed Sarvam AI in India.

Krutrim’s AI models can understand over 20 Indian languages and generate text in 10 Indian languages, including Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, and Marathi. Krutrim Pro, a higher and more sophisticated version, is anticipated to be available in Q4 FY24.

Furthermore, Krutrim is working on building AI infrastructure. It is developing indigenous data centres and aims to get into server-computing, edge-computing, and super-computers eventually. The startup is also working on manufacturing AI-optimised silicon chips.

In January, Krutrim became India’s first AI unicorn with a $50 Mn funding round led by a clutch of investors, including Matrix Partners India. The startup said it would use the fresh funds to drive innovation and expand its reach globally to revolutionise the AI landscape.

According to Inc42’s ‘India’s Generative AI Startup Landscape 2023’ report, the country’s GenAI market is projected to surpass $17 Bn by 2030 from $1.1 Bn in 2023, growing at a CAGR of 48%.

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