Homegrown Chatbot ‘Hanooman’ Goes Live In 98 Languages

SUMMARY

Launched by SML India and 3AI Holding, Hanooman is an Gen AI chatbot, which will be available in vernacular mediums such as Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, and Kannada

The company also claims to be building a series of LLMs that can respond in 11 Indian languages such as Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, and Marathi

SML India also announced a partnership with Hiranandani Group-backed Yotta, under which it will leverage Yotta’s GPU cloud infrastructure

Homegrown generative AI (GenAI) chatbot ‘Hanooman’ has officially gone live in as many as 98 languages, including 12 Indian languages.

The chatbot will be available in vernacular mediums such as Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, and Kannada as well as English, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, and Korean, among others.

Developed jointly by Telangana-based SML India and Abu Dhabi-headquartered 3AI Holding, the chatbot was officially launched on Friday (May 10). It is pertinent to note that the chatbot’s app made its debut on Google Play Store on May 4.

The Abu Dhabi-based company’s role in the development of the app is providing specialised large language models (LLMs) for deriving insights.

The Android app is currently only available in India. It can also be accessed via web mode. The iOS app for the chatbot is also expected to be released soon.

The GenAI platform is currently free to use, but the developers plan to unveil premium subscriptions later in the year.

“Powered by 3AI Holding’s cutting-edge technology, it combines specialised LLMs built with a dynamic integration synthesis matrix to deliver clear, adaptive insights and transform complex data into actionable intelligence effortlessly,” the companies said in a joint statement.

It claims that Hanooman can handle tasks such as a casual chat, offering professional advice, coding and tutoring. The company also claims to be building a series of LLMs that can respond in 11 Indian languages, with plans to expand it to more than 20 languages.

SML’s cofounder and CEO Vishnu Vardhan said that the company also plans to add the multimodal functionality to chatbot in the coming weeks, enabling Hanooman to process inputs such as speech, audio, video as well and images.

“… With its launch, we aim to impact the lives of 200 Mn users within the first year alone… Hanooman’s capabilities to support Indian languages will bring Gen AI to the reach of everyone in India and open massive opportunities for companies and startups bringing Gen AI products to the market,” said Vardhan.

Commenting on the launch, 3AI Holding’s managing director Arjun Prasad said, “… What sets Hanooman apart is that it is built in India, built for India, and stored in India (data). Through our strategic partnership with SML India, we strive to cater to a diverse spectrum of users, making AI inclusive and available to everyone, regardless of their ethnicity or location…”

Meanwhile, SML India also announced a partnership with Hiranandani Group-backed Yotta. The company will leverage Yotta’s GPU cloud infrastructure to bolster its operations.

In addition, the companies are also planning to unveil open-source LLMs to enterprises in need of on-premise solutions. The company said that the offering will service four sectors – healthcare, governance, financial services, and education.

The company also announced a collaboration with the Government of Telangana and the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) to facilitate seamless translation between English and Telugu and enhance accessibility and understanding of crucial documents like court orders.

This comes a month after the two companies publicly announced their partnership. At the time, they said that the entities will hold 50% stake each in Hanooman, with an eye on reaching 200 Mn users across 22 Indian languages by 2024-end.

The launch comes within a week of Bhavish Aggarwal-led AI unicorn Krutrim AI announcing the release of an Android app for its AI chatbot.

At the heart of all this is the flourishing Indian AI market. According to Inc42’s ‘India’s Generative AI Startup Landscape 2023’ report, the size of the country’s GenAI market is projected to surpass $17 Bn by 2030 from $1.1 Bn in 2023.

In India, OpenAI’s ChatGPT controls a significant majority in terms of user base. However, global tech majors such as Meta and Google are also challenging the Sam Altman-led company’s dominance in the market with their offerings.

Earlier in April, Meta rolled out its GenAI chatbot for Indian users across its three platforms – WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger in a pilot mode. On the other hand, Google has launched Gemini across the globe.