Indian Startups Using LLM Models To Solve Real World Problems: Microsoft India CTO

Indian startups have started using large language models (LLM) in niche languages to solve real world problems especially in the Indian context, Rohini Srivathsa, chief technology officer at Microsoft India and South Asia said during the inaugural session of Inc42 Gen AI Summit in Bengaluru today.

Srivathsa said during the panel discussion with Inc42 co-founder and chief executive officer Vaibhav Vardhan and Sangeeta Bavi, executive director-Digital Natives, Microsoft India that AI in India has started to become mainstream with its integration in different industries and that “we haven’t even scratched the surface of this evolving technology.”

“I believe that India will have a huge role to play in India’s $10 Tn economy. Apart from helping the consumer, workforces we also have seen startups building their toplines by using AI. Besides technologists and developers, even the business leaders in large corporates and startups are now interested in finding out how the revenues of the company will grow using Gen AI,” Srivathsa said at the summit.

While replying to a question as to how the tech giant like Microsoft is working with native Gen AI startups, Sangeeta Bavi said that Microsoft has now begun paying startups who are working with the tech firm using LLM models in niche models.

Bavi said that for both B2B SaaS and B2C startups, AI will be an important futuristic tool which will either disrupt existing applications and help in customer retention ( B2C).

“The existing app ecosystem stakeholders will have to first think AI first or they will get disrupted by the new technology. Things are moving at the speed of weeks in Gen AI, so I suggest app developers to move at that intensity,” Bavi added.

Microsoft India’s CTO explained that there are startups which are working in both small and large language models where native cultural and dialects are used and this could unlock further opportunities for a market like India.

“I also see AI’s huge use cases in real estate, financial services and healthcare sector,” Srivathsa noted.

Microsoft’s top executives also delved on the talent gap that may exist because of demand in Gen AI technology. “Microsoft has already begun skilling the workforce under various training programmes looking at paradigm shift.Similarly there are AI tools readily available which could be used by corporates 

Microsoft’s CTO also added that the corporates and startups will have use AI to leverage the data created because of digital public infrastructure, ONDC, Aadhar success.