Krutrim, the AI division of Ola founded by Bhavish Aggarwal, plans to launch its voice-based AI assistant, Kruti, on June 12.

This assistant is designed to operate in Indic languages, though additional details about its features have not yet been provided.

The company has also announced plans to develop India’s first AI silicon chips by 2026. These chips will be aimed at handling complex AI workloads.

This initiative is part of a broader strategy to expand its AI offerings, which include foundational models and Krutrim Cloud, a platform that provides AI and general-purpose services.

Since its inception in early 2024, Krutrim Cloud has gained over 25,000 developers. It has facilitated 250 billion API calls across various services.

The platform offers more than 50 services, including Bhashik, a language hub for multimodal translation, and Customer Experience AI for enterprise applications.

🔗 Source: YourStory

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Voice-first AI in India taps into a rapidly expanding market

Krutrim’s focus on a voice-based assistant that works “in your language” aligns strategically with India’s voice recognition market, which is currently valued at $462.8 million and projected to grow nearly six-fold to $2,982.4 million by 2033, representing a 23% CAGR 1.

This growth is being fueled by increasing smartphone adoption across India and the expansion of connected devices like smart TVs and wearables that enable voice interactions 1.

A critical technical advancement making Kruti possible is the improvement in voice recognition technology’s ability to understand regional Indian languages and accents, addressing a long-standing barrier to adoption in India’s linguistically diverse landscape 1.

Similar multilingual voicebot implementations in India have demonstrated significant business value, with HDFC Bank’s EVA voicebot handling over 5 million customer interactions monthly with a 92% accuracy rate 2.

Businesses implementing voice assistants in India have reported 35-45% reductions in customer service costs, suggesting strong economic incentives for adoption beyond the technological appeal 2.

2️⃣ Indian AI startups attracting substantial funding despite financial challenges

Krutrim’s substantial R&D investment of Rs 134.86 crore despite reporting no revenue reflects a broader pattern in India’s AI startup ecosystem, where investors are placing long-term bets on future growth potential.