GenAI's Impact Vastly Underestimated, AI Can Aid India's Export Market Generative AI will disrupt education, and its impact has been vastly underestimated, said Nitin Sharma, Founding Partner at Antler, through the firm's NEXT100 report, featuring voices to discuss the next big things AI to building for the new-age consumer.

Generative AI will disrupt education, and its impact has been vastly underestimated, said Nitin Sharma, Founding Partner at Antler, through the firm's NEXT100 report, featuring voices to discuss the next big things AI to building for the new-age consumer.

"Now is the moment to build entirely new products, experiences, and business models for learning. While AI will reshape every industry, education may change the most. Every past platform shift - PCs, the Internet, mobile, cloud - wasn't fundamentally about learning, but GenAI is. If knowledge is language, and AI can generate context, content, and mastery-driven pathways, education transforms at its core," said Sharma.

In 2024, Indian DeepTech startups in sectors such as defence, AI, space, quantum computing, and semiconductors attracted USD 1.6 billion in funding, marking a 78% increase from 2023, according to a Nasscom report.

Vani Kola, Managing Director at Kalaari Capital, said that India stands at the cusp of a DeepTech revolution with unprecedented opportunities to transform its industrial and technological landscape.

"With a robust talent pool, growing startup ecosystem, and supportive government policies, India is poised to become a global hub for DeepTech innovation. Advancements in AI, robotics, IoT, and quantum computing can enable India to solve complex challenges across sectors like manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and logistics," said Kola.

The country's Artificial Intelligence (AI) is undergoing rapid growth, and is expected to hit annual growth rates of 25-35 per cent over the next few years. A late 2024 report from Nasscom-EY revealed that India's AI adoption index is now 2.47 out of 4, a small uptick from 2.45 in 2022.

It also revealed that 87 per cent of companies are in the middle stages of AI adoption, classified as enthusiast and expert adopters. The number of companies in the expert stage, particularly in the manufacturing, telecom, media, and entertainment sectors, has doubled in 2024 compared to 2022.

AI can aid in growing India's export market, and something like an AI-enabled Alibaba-type platform is necessary, according to Apurva Chamaria, Global Head of Venture Capital and Startups, Google.

"AI can revolutionize B2B trade by enhancing discovery, trust-building, and trade financing, making exports more efficient and scalable. With the China+1 strategy shifting global supply chains, India has a unique opportunity. The missing piece? An AI-first Alibaba for Indian exporters, bridging the gap between domestic manufacturers and global buyers," said Chamaria.

Shubham Sandeep, Managing Director, pi Ventures, opines that an emerging opportunity lies at the intersection of AI and our physical world, leveraging spatial intelligence to revolutionize our personal lives as well as industries like manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and others.

Until now, the majority of the AI penetration has been in the digital world with the advent of machine learning and foundational models. However, according to Sandeep, our physical world is still pretty dumb and that is bound to change.

"A startup could focus on creating a platform that combines embodied AI (AI systems that interact with and adapt to physical environments) with cutting-edge spatial data analytics. Or creating synthetic data for the physical world to enable sim-to-real transfer. Or personalized physical objects with embedded AI running on the edge. Such a venture would also align with India's Make-in-India initiative, potentially positioning itself as a global pioneer in developing embodied AI products," said Sandeep.