Top 5 Start-ups Taking A Leap In Artificial Intelligence In India

Given the era of troublesome technologies, Artificial intelligence can certainly be termed one of the most favorable ones. As AI is navigating a path around all the major industries, its acceptance and embracement are unmatched to any other technology.

India is fast becoming the hub for the technology start-up. With the government’s initiatives and private sector investors showing tremendous interest in the large pool of talented technical evangelists, e-commerce punters have now become the hero of India’s start-up journey. However, the start-ups of Artificial intelligence sector has largely been unrecognized. This, in spite of the fact that international tech giants such as Apple, Facebook, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, IBM have voiced interest in Indian startups, and many of them have been acquired by these companies or started getting large scale funding by VC’s, Angel Investors and YC. The trend is set to change — both globally, and in India as AI is forecasted to generate $47 billion in annual revenues and replace 5 million redundant jobs and create fresh opportunities globally by 2020.

Investors have backed more than 200 AI-focused companies in India and have together raised more than $1.5 billion so far in the past year. Obsessed and motivated by evolving technologies and a thriving domestic market, the entrepreneurs are discovering a whole new prospect in AI and machine learning across a diversity of applications and use cases.

Just like the way electricity transformed many industries a century ago, same way Artificial Intelligence will also now change nearly every major industry from healthcare, transportation, e-commerce to manufacturing and defense inspiring and enriching lives of countless people.

What is AI?

In plain simple words, AI is building computers that are capable of taking smart decisions by themselves, the way we do. AI can be categorized into two types

1. Artificial General Intelligence

A computer is capable of doing anything a human can.

1. Artificial Narrow Intelligence

A computer does what a human can do, but only within narrow and secure bounds.

What is Machine learning?

Machine learning provides computers with the capability to learn without being explicitly programmed.

How does AI work?

Customary software code writing required programming computers, fundamentally telling computers what to do. With machine learning, computers are taught to do things themselves. The Industrial Revolution automated manual work and the Information Revolution did the same for mental work, but machine learning automates automation itself.

What has made people rush to AI?

The keen interest in machine learning has been driven by a convergence of factors, such as the enormous increase in computing power, advent of neural networks (connected transistors that duplicate the structure of neurons in the human brain) and the easy obtainability of massive amounts of data, thanks to the Internet.

The rise of a technology has many heads of large corporates issuing a stern warning of a doomsday scenario. However, there is no doubt that AI is the next gen technology; hence companies like Google have already created a separate wing called Google.ai to facilitate R&D on AI.

Which are the sectors using AI

When Compared to Silicon Valley and China, India is a still in catch up position but we still have nearly 300 start-ups are using some form of AI. Currently, in India, AI is being used in

• E-commerce
• Healthcare
• Education
• Financial Services
• Retail and Logistics

For example, e-commerce companies use machine learning techniques and predictive analysis to recommend products. Transportation companies use the power of AI using customer location and GPS to provide them update on their cab booking. Healthcare start-ups use AI to provide proper medical diagnosis information

The Indian start-up eco system and AI

The rise of AI has gotten most people into thinking; some fear that machines may evolve and start controlling things and outsmart humans. But there are people who think it is the next stage of human evolution and we can start using AI and machines not only on earth but also use the power of AI to find if there are extraterrestrial beings. It does not matter who is on which side of the fence, there is no doubt that AI signifies potentially the greatest disruptive jump in technology in 21st century.

We take look at top 5 exciting start-ups that are using AI and machine learning techniques across multiple sectors of businesses. These start-ups are well funded but face stiff competition from other AI start-ups and big players. Their solutions are yet to make a significant impact in the industry but the investors are betting big on their success.

Given the sheer number of AI start-ups in India, it is practically not possible to write about all of them hence the list is far from comprehensive. Let us take a look at the top 5 AI-based start-ups in India.

Netradyne

Netradyne was the first commercial vehicle technology provider to combine AI with video to perceive reason and determine causality of events. This allows the fleet to rapidly apply resources; identifying greater performance or addressing a risky driving situation before it becomes a catastrophic event.

Their product Driveri, a powerful camera that examines driving patterns and can help decide the reason of an accident. The mobile phone size device is attached to a vehicle’s rear-view mirror and rests on the inside of the windscreen, pointing towards the road. It has four high-definition cameras generating 360-degree footage of the vehicle’s pathway (transmitted via real-time LTE network), has a GPS, gyroscope sensors and accelerometer, and a NVidia processor. The unit captures visuals of the car’s surroundings, examines driving patterns and stores the data on a cloud platform.

It makes use of machine learning techniques and deep-learning systems to study the whole scene in front of the car: stop signs, traffic lights, distance to every other vehicle, objects in its course, relative speeds and direction.

This data enables the platform to determine if the driver adhering to all the traffic rules, if the driver is drunk or in distress, or if the driver is taken a detour from the set route. In the event of an accident, it also sends real-time alerts to the fleet operator. After testing the product for over 750,000 miles, Netradyne launched Driveri in the US market. Similar technology is being used to power self-driven car projects across the globe.

Arya.ai

Arya is a platform for developers that helps streamline a build and assist in deployment of machine Learning based applications. The vision is to build ‘intelligence systems’ that can help humans in solving complex problems at a much faster pace.

There are numerous start-ups in India that are working on deep learning, with the aim of making human effort marginal. Arya.ai does the role of an “enabler”. For example, if a consulting company is building AI for a banking customer, Arya.ai will assist them with the tools that are required to build the solution, creating the “neural network” a massive computing system that replicates the human brain; this will create a cloud eco system which will let the AI to develop, learn from its previous tasks and apply them to the next one.

Arya.ai not only provides solutions to consulting firms they also have direct customers, like as banks or insurance companies, where cases of fraud claims and bad loans can be identified with meticulousness. Ai enabled systems are already proving its effectiveness. Based on customer transaction patterns and past records banks can decide on further action against a person or an organization. This is the direct result of the data is fed into it, based on various algorithms.

Locus.sh

Locus provides enterprises a solution to accomplish intra-city logistics for planned and On-Demand goods deliveries by taking advantage of data analytics tools using automation, GPS and Geo tagging to augment logistics systems. It is mandatory for the Logistics Service Providers to guarantee complete utilization of their resources with maximum control on wastage. Locus helps in automation and optimization of customer’s logistics, while logistics companies can focus on things that matter the most, exceed customer expectation. This solution results in reduced logistics cost, on-time deliveries and a delightful end user experience.

Locus has developed route-planning algorithms to assist logistics companies can figure out the best possible and cost effective route to ship an order and make sure a delivered with maximum touch points in a single shipment in the shortest time possible.

Logistics companies give Locus the point of origin of the package, destination information and expected time of delivery. Locus then sources information of every possible route using Google Maps or scrutinizes through data on past deliveries of the route. This data is then processed, taking into various factors like weather, traffic, the time taken to cover the distance, etc. and arrive at a few best routes.

Niki.ai

Niki, is one of the first chatbots that was developed in India, and is designed to cater as a virtual shopkeeper that helps customers to purchase products and services. The chatbot can assist customers in doing multiple activities from booking a cab, ordering food, booking tickets to utility bill payments, Flight bookings, and insurance premium payment.

It works on a sequence of complex algorithms that comprehend human language by breaking it down into structured queries that the machine can comprehend. Another set of codes then produces a response related to the query, and this continues on till the task is completed. The core of the platform is its language-recognition systems.

Niki is currently being used for over 20 services, including hotel, cab and movie ticket bookings, ordering food and paying bills. The best part of Niki is, it recognizes the customer behavior and if they are rude, it will rebuke you and can even block off the customer.

Active.ai

Acitve.ai is Fintech Company utilizing the power of AI to bring conversational banking services. The solution helps banks and financial institutions to redefine their digital strategy for the future, by integrating automation and perceptive customer engagement. The company’s tailor made banking technology uses innovative NLP and machine intelligence to empower customers to have natural conversations over messaging, voice or IOT devices.

If a customer needs to know their account balance and does not intend to visit a bank or an ATM they can send a message to the bank through using WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger and they will get a response from the bank. Probabilities are high that the bank is using Active.ai platform.

Active.ai has developed complex algorithms that can transform unstructured messages by customers, into structured instructions for banks using natural language processing and machine learning.

What is the future of AI?

Today the normal public is likely to have interacted with AI systems only in a few avenues, with chatbots being the most noticeable ones. AI can not only b used in our day to day life but also new ventures like electricity management, Defense sector, exploring places where in human life can be in danger, Deep space exploration and many others. But the current big pushback against the implementation and embracing of AI is because of the effect it may have on the global workforce.

Bringing it all together

Artificial Intelligence has been predominant for decades now, but lately, this field has picked up pace and has been mounting quickly. Almost every company, across multiple sectors, are using artificial intelligence in a best possible way for their businesses to modernize and make their services consumer-friendly to give convenience to their end users.

This need for AI by so many businesses has created an environment for startups to flourish in India. Further; the big tech companies are also funding startups in this space powering their growth. So in the long term, startups leveraging AI for profit may have to heed to stern guidelines and regulations.