Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal Asks Developers To Exit Google Maps, Offers Free Access To Ola Maps

Two days after Ola’s founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal announced that the ride-hailing startup has fully exited Google Maps and moved to its in-house navigation platform Ola Maps, he has now urged Indian developers to stop using Google Maps and also announced one-year free access to all developers to Ola Maps on AI-driven Krutrim platform.

Besides, Aggarwal also claimed to offer over INR 100 Cr in free credits to developers.

In an X post, Aggarwal said, “After #ExitAzure, it’s time for developers to #ExitGoogleMaps! 1 YEAR FREE access to all developers to Ola Maps on @Krutrim, more than ₹100 Cr in free credits!”

“ We’ve been using Western apps to map India for too long and they don’t get our unique challenges: street names, urban changes, complex traffic, non-standard roads etc. Ola Maps tackles these with AI-powered India-specific algorithms, real-time data from millions of vehicles, leveraging and contributing massively to open source (5 Mn+ edits just last year!),” he added.

Aggarwal further claimed its map is outperforming competitors in terms of accuracy in location, search and ETA (estimated time of arrival), among others. 

It is pertinent to note that this move is a part of Aggarwal’s broader strategy to bolster its Krutrium platform. 

For instance, in May, the founder notified about bringing over 2,500 developers on board who will be working to get companies onto its cloud platform over the coming weeks.

Besides, he asserted that Ola would stop using Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure and migrate to Krutrim’s cloud.

Earlier, Aggarwal also claimed to offer developers free cloud usage for a year if they switch to Krutrium Cloud from Microsoft’s Azure. 

Notably, Krutrim AI released its Android app in the Play Store on May 2. Previously, the founder has outlined his intentions to build a platform for Indian developers to build global apps with Krutrim.

Krutrim became India’s first AI unicorn earlier this year after raising a $50 Mn funding round led by a clutch of investors, including Matrix Partners India.

Aggarwal’s third startup Krutrim launched its AI model in December with functionality similar to other open-source large language models (LLM) such as ChatGPT and Meta’s Llama 2.

Krutrium competes against 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.

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