Our personal lives and business models are surely being transformed by the artificial intelligence (AI) suite of technologies, which includes machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, image recognition, and natural language processing (NLP), to mention a few. The AI market in India is also quite promising. According to a joint research by Microsoft and the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), this market will expand by 20% over the following five years, with a significant portion of that increase attributable to private businesses and industry associations in this field. We have put together a list of a handful of these organisations that stood out in 2022, while we are aware that it is not an entire list.
Staqu
The Gurugram-based AI startup Staqu was established in 2015. It offers text processing, audio-video analytics, and image identification solutions. When the Punjab Artificial Intelligence System (PAIS), which was developed using the company’s platform called Jarvis in 2020, was created, it became the first facial recognition (FR) system used by a police force in India. The company collaborates closely with numerous private and public organisations, including police forces of various states. Since then, Staqu’s exclusive technology has also been utilised by the police departments in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar. Mount Judi Venture and SIS Limited contributed 11 crore to Staqu’s Pre-Series A investment round this year. According to co-founder Atul Rai, the company also had a 100% increase in sales year over year and experienced total growth that was three times higher in just two quarters (as of September 2022).
Qure.ai
Mumbai-based Founded in 2016, Qure.ai is a health technology business. It provides AI-based decision support for diagnostic pictures such as X-rays, CT scans, and ultrasounds. The company’s portfolio includes the products qXR, qER, and qCT-Lung. Qure.ai collaborated with government agencies throughout the pandemic, including the NHS Bolton in the UK for Covid identification and the Oman Ministry of Health for patient monitoring, screening, and case tracking of Covid-positive patients.
The business, which has customers in 50 countries, raised $40 million this year.
startups with conversational AI
Conversational AI has been among the most discussed use-cases of AI in the last year or two, with Indian companies like Uniphore and Gupshup expected to become unicorns in 2022 and late 2021, respectively. It integrates natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and other related technologies to engage users in human-like conversations. Despite the fact that people might not always appreciate conversing with emotionless machines, it has been reported to have several business use-cases.
According to a Gartner analysis released in August, conversational AI solutions for contact centres, which are used by businesses to manage their customer contacts, are predicted to generate $1.99 billion in end-user spending globally by 2022. In addition, the research predicted that by 2026, one in ten contacts with agents will be automated. Earlier this year, Haptik, which was purchased by Mukesh Ambani’s billionaire Reliance Jio in 2019, told Mint that it aimed to reach $25 million in annualised recurring revenue (ARR) by March 2023. More early-stage businesses, including Verloop, have also reported that the pandemic has increased sales.
The conversational AI tool ChatGPT comfortably tops the list of the most ground-breaking technology advancements of the year. Companies are becoming aware of the enormous advantages it has to offer as a result of the expectation of additional innovation in this area. Colabo, a provider of knowledge automation solutions backed by artificial intelligence (AI), was bought by Uniphore in April of this year. This business uses AI to assist in information extraction from both organised and unstructured documents.
The firms in the limelight include Haptik, Gupshup, Uniphore, and Verloop, but investors are paying close attention to the conversational AI market as a whole.
Artpark
Artpark isn’t technically a firm. The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru and AI Foundry established the not-for-profit foundation known as the AI and Robotics Technology Park (Artpark) in 2020 using a public-private partnership model. In its two years of operation, the organisation has nonetheless made some noteworthy progress. The Department of Science and Technology (DST), which gave the project a $22 million startup fund, supports ARTPARK. It collaborated with Google this year to introduce Project Vaani, an initiative to assemble top-notch datasets in Indian languages. Although Artpark may not be a startup in the traditional sense, it appears very probable that it will influence the development of AI in India in the upcoming year or years.
