In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly evolved from an early technology to a catalyst for industrial transformation. Generative AI models are gaining attention in 2023 and 2024. According to a McKinsey report titled “The Economic Potential of Generative AI,” generative AI could benefit the global economy by up to $4.4 trillion per year.
In India, generative AI is helping advance sectors ranging from agriculture and education to manufacturing, banking, automotive, e-commerce and healthcare. New Indic language models such as OpenHathi for Hindi and Kan-Llama for Kannada are making AI accessible to people of different languages.
The Indian government has also launched INDIAai to boost AI development and adoption in the country. Similarly, MeitY’s Bhashini aims to build a national digital public platform for AI-based language technologies and make these tools available for all Indian languages.
Why the industry needs to embrace AI
According to NASSCOM, the adoption of AI is expected to contribute an additional $1 trillion to the Indian economy by 2035. This value will be created by automating complex tasks, increasing productivity, and powering new products and services.
Industries such as finance, healthcare, media and retail are likely to see the most transformation. For example, AI-driven automation in finance can reduce operational costs by 22%. Also, AI in healthcare can improve patient outcomes by predicting diseases earlier. For industries looking to stay competitive, adopting AI solutions is no longer an option, it’s a necessity.
In particular, generative AI is expected to have a major impact on the media industry by enhancing content creation, personalization, and automation. AI tools will streamline back-end tasks such as tagging, copy editing, and transcription, as well as generate summaries and headlines. The technology is expected to act as a valuable assistant for media professionals.
Indian AI Startups
According to a report by NASSCOM and Zinnov, India is home to over 31,000 technology startups, 70% of which are investing in AI. Startups are at the forefront of AI innovation, leveraging open-source technologies to develop solutions that challenge the status quo.
Many AI startups are leveraging fine-tuned versions of LLM models like Llama3 and Mistral, and new architectures like Search Augmented Generation (RAG), to create a variety of powerful AI applications. These include conversational AI chatbots and AI assistants that enhance customer interactions and automate routine tasks. They are also creating coding assistants that deeply integrate with integrated development environments (IDEs) like Visual Studio Code.
Media-focused startups are leveraging fine-tuned versions of Stable Diffusion, AudioGen, and MusicGen to create brand-specific image, video, audio, and music content. Computer vision startups are using object detection models such as Yolo to develop image-based analysis, object tracking, and assistants for medical professionals.
With increasingly advanced open source AI models being released more frequently, startups can develop previously unimaginable advanced applications in a very short time. This dynamic ecosystem, developed on platforms such as Hugging Face and GitHub, allows startups to create cutting-edge AI solutions and challenge existing paradigms.
How AI startups are driving industry transformation
Startups are aggressively driving AI innovation, applying novel approaches to solve critical business challenges. Startups bring fresh perspectives and cutting-edge solutions, while industry offers scale, resources, and expertise. By working together, we can leverage each other’s strengths and are already seeing excitement across a range of sectors.
In healthcare, startups are developing advanced diagnostic tools, personalized treatment plans, and predictive models. AI is being used for early detection of breast cancer, and its integration in drug discovery is expected to reach $4 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 45.7%.
In agriculture, AI provides farmers with real-time data on crop health, weather patterns, and soil conditions, leading to better yields and less waste. In media and entertainment, startups are creating realistic animations, special effects, and entire scenes for movies and video games using only generative AI, helping to scale production and reduce costs. In the fashion industry, AI-powered virtual fitting rooms allow customers to digitally try on clothes and accessories, enriching the online shopping experience.
In finance, startups are building AI models to detect anomalous patterns and behaviors in financial transactions, improving fraud prevention and extending credit to underserved populations, thereby fostering financial inclusion.
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In the field of education, generative AI is transforming the learning experience. Malar Teacher, the world’s first AI university professor, recently launched WhatsApp and is using it to guide his engineering students and simplify complex topics.
Despite the impressive capabilities we’ve already seen, generative AI technology is still in its infancy. In 2024, we will see the emergence of advanced frameworks such as DSPy and ReAct, which will enable the creation of AI agents that can reason about complex problems. These agents will continuously improve their performance and adapt to the user’s needs in real time. New multi-modal AI models are also being developed that can reason about text, video, audio, and images and respond in real time.
Future outlook
As AI technology advances further, industries will need to leverage the innovations of AI startups to develop new products and increase efficiencies. The future promises unprecedented growth opportunities, making AI an essential part of business strategies to stay competitive and ahead of the curve. Embracing this technological evolution is crucial for industries looking to stay ahead in a rapidly changing global marketplace.
