Build Products For Both India & The World To Leverage GenAI Mania: Rephrase Cofounder

AI-powered video creation startup Rephrase.ai’s cofounder Shivam Mangla believes that Indian GenAI startups will have to cater to both domestic and global markets to effectively leverage the GenAI boom.

Speaking at Inc42’s GenAI Summit, Mangla said that building applications on top of existing AI models that solve challenges faced by both local and overseas businesses will be key to creating revenue streams. 

Indian GenAI startups need to build apps on top of existing AI models that solve local problems faced by Indian enterprises as well as the challenges faced by the businesses in the US. These will be key areas where revenue streams will come from, said Mangla.

He made the comments during a panel discussion on the topic, “First Movers In India’s GenAI Revolution”. The panellists also included Portkey AI cofounder and CTO Ayush Garg, Humantic AI founder and CEO Amarpreet Kalkat, and Stellaris Venture Partners’ partner Alok Goyal.

While decoding the potential of the emerging technology on the homegrown startup ecosystem, the panellists agreed that SaaS platforms have an edge over their peers in terms of GenAI adoption owing to the large swathes of data they have at their disposal.

However, Mangla, in a word of caution, said that GenAI startups will initially face challenges in finding the right set of clients as large enterprises may take a long time to decipher where GenAI could be used to optimise their operations.

Notwithstanding the longer timeline, Kalkat said that wary enterprises still want more control when it comes to GenAI products as there are “many risks” involved. In response to a question about what the enterprises are looking to focus on when it comes to Gen AI products, he said that compliance, control, privacy are on top of their list.

Meanwhile, Goyal said that Indian GenAI startups are well placed to race ahead of large enterprises in disrupting the ecosystem. He asserted that smaller players have always driven change in the arena of a disruptive technology despite the capital and resources of enterprises.

“Whenever we have seen new disruptive technology, it is always the startups or smaller companies which have been the drivers of the change even as the large enterprises have capital and resources at their disposal… Ultimately innovation will come from small companies. They have the focus, passion, and mission, and aren’t subject to bureaucracy like large enterprises,” Goyal added. 

The comments come as the GenAI revolution continues to sweep the country and the globe. As per Inc42 data, the country is home to more than 100 native startups (as of October 2023) that have raised $600 Mn+ since 2019.

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