BENGALURU: One of the early adopters of the artificial intelligence (AI) technology, India is witnessing its tech space enter a frenetic pace with young entrepreneurs setting up as many as 100 startups every day. Every sixth AI developer / researcher in the world is an Indian and about 25% of the incremental global workforce over the next decade will come from India.
These are some of the views that emerged from the Microsoft AI Tour event held in Bengaluru on Thursday. Top executives and AI experts who attended the event were bullish on India’s stupendous growth prospects in the AI space. Puneet Chandok, president, of Microsoft India and South Asia, said India is the most exciting market in the world fuelled by AI.
“We all have to learn and if you are not learning about AI every day, you are falling behind,” he said, stressing on the need to unlock productivity. “My email productivity has gone up by 50% and two-third of emails I don’t write anymore,” he said, talking about automation and transcription. More than 1,100 developers gathered at the Microsoft AI event spoke about Copilot, a chatbot developed by the US the giant based on a large language model.
Launched it in 2023, Copilot in Windows empowers one to create faster, complete tasks with ease and lessens cognitive load. Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, who is currently in India, reinforced the company’s commitment to supporting India’s transformation into an AI-first nation.
He highlighted how Microsoft Copilot, along with the company’s other AI solutions, is driving measurable productivity gains for people and organisations by helping them complete work faster and with superior quality.
Organisations in India are seeing an average $3.86 return for every US dollar spent on AI projects, and more than 150 organisations are already innovating with Azure OpenAI Service across industries such as agriculture, aviation, ecommerce, and fast-moving consumer goods, Microsoft said.
AI is an equaliser
When the full potential of AI is realised, it can strengthen India’s economy including rural economy. AI is an equaliser and will reduce the gap between urban and rural India democratising skills, says Manav Subodh, founder of 1M1B (One Million for One Billion).
According to him, in the space of skilling, AI is going to be revolutionary in its ability to provide a robust system of support for youths. AI will facilitate an ease of work in small businesses and entrepreneurs.
“Where previously they were unable to hire big-time agencies to expand their operations, they can now get a surprising amount done by leveraging generative AI,” he said.