Tracking the AI Disruption: Impact and Benefits for Businesses

Unlocking AI Potential in India: Seizing Missed Opportunities and exploring Untapped potential opportunities for India

This article delves into the untapped potential of AI in India, highlighting missed opportunities and exploring the possibilities for future growth. It focuses on the prospect of Indian companies developing powerful tools like LLM (Large Language Models) and examines two distinct development categories: Core product development, exemplified by ChatGPT, and satellite product development, which harnesses the power of core products. Developing both types of products requires three key ingredients: Data, Infrastructure (Compute & Storage), and Machine Learning (ML) Algorithms.
ML algorithms are relatively easy to implement, with generative AI tools providing source code and open-source communities like Hugging Face offering readily available resources. India boasts an abundance of talented Python developers who can implement these algorithms from scratch if needed. The infrastructure requirement can be fulfilled by utilizing public cloud services, which are readily available in India. However, core product development necessitates diverse historical data across various verticals to achieve optimal effectiveness, an aspect in which most Indian companies face challenges. On the other hand, satellite product development for specific businesses and use cases holds great potential. Let’s explore examples of Indian companies with access to valuable data that can be harnessed to create AI applications:

1. Insurance – In the insurance domain, Insurtech platforms like Policy Bazaar, Insurance Dekho, RenewBuy, Turtlemint and Zopper possess a valuable asset – consumer policy data. By harnessing this data, they can achieve remarkable advancements, including predicting insurance requirements, cross-selling, upselling, and automation. A pivotal step in this transformation can be the development of an intelligent and context-specific chatbot application, utilizing historical policy data to enhance the efficiency of insurance agents and sellers. For instance, if an agent could inquire, “Tell me the list of motor policies that are expiring in the next 15 days and whose premium is more than 10,000.” “or “Tell me the list of customers that have motor insurance but not the health insurance” The application would promptly process the data and furnish a list of relevant policies that meet the specified criteria. Current products give the selective options and format while what agent requires is the more freedom and options in the native language.

2. Finance – NBFCs (Non-Banking Financial Companies) boast vast cross-bank and consumer data, ideal for predicting customer profiles and financial requirements. Fintech companies like Bajaj Finance and Jio Finance can capitalize on this opportunity by developing AI-driven tools for personalized financial advice and risk assessment.

3. Retail Consumer Data – Indian retailers like Jio, Dmart, Tata Retail, Zomato, CarDekho can use their data to predict consumer behavior and improve retail operations. This is long pending if not already implemented.

4. Government of India (Human Welfare) – Thanks to JAM (Jandhan accounts + Aadhar + Mobile), the government has structured data that can be used for demographic and income predictions, benefiting multiple purposes. The government can encourage the entrepreneurs to develop AI applications to predict the success of social welfare programs and allocate resources more effectively.

5. Government of India (Legal support) – Leveraging non-structural historical data on court judgments, AI-based products can be developed to offer invaluable assistance to individuals grappling with legal complexities through chat-based interactions. By implementing a legal assistance chatbot, individuals can receive expert guidance on legal procedures and relevant case laws with ease. Envision a ChatGPT-like application designed specifically for legal judgement in India, enabling common citizens to make plain English queries. For instance, they could inquire, “List down the cases in which a person was acquitted under section 1954 of IPC.” Such a sophisticated chatbot holds the potential to simplify access to legal information, empower individuals, and navigate the intricate realm of law with confidence.

Over the past two decades, Indian IT service companies have been held back in the race for innovations including AI due to a conservative approach and limited investment in R&D—an ongoing concern. However, despite this, the potential for satellite product development remains boundless, offering Indian entrepreneurs countless opportunities to create innovative solutions. With the right data and focused efforts, Indian companies possess the ability to achieve significant strides in the world of AI, unlocking its full potential and paving the way for a brighter future.

Notably, collaborations like Infinite AI partnering with chartered accountants to develop AI-based products showcase the transformative impact such ventures can have on enhancing efficiency and relevance in their respective fields.