人工智能与人类：评估150多家初创公司的人工智能产品

5Bernstein's Al vs. Human forum will bring together startups, industry leaders, venture capand consultants in Mumbai later this year. In the lead-up, we are digging deeper into theopportunities emerging from Al. In the report, we present a perspective from our evaluationof 150+ Indian startups to spotlight the promising globally scalable Al products that cantransform end markets as varied as investment management, research, logistics, andmedia. Which of the Al products will we adopt?It does feel a bit odd to say we've evaluated over 150 "Indian" startups, as their only truecommonality is having Indian founders. Nearly a quarter have headquarters outside India,with intercontinental teams serving global clients, even though a significant tech presenceremains in Bengaluru or Noida. In that sense, they're as "Indian" as Microsoft or Google are,with Indian-origin CEOs. Al, by its nature, is geography-agnostic-unlike retail or FinTech,it isn't constrained by distance or local regulations. As a result, many of these so-called"Indian" ventures are poised to leave a lasting global footprint, making them truly global.A thriving ecosystem: When the IT boom arrived in India in the mid-late 1990s, travelcosts were high, timelines were long, domestic tech demand was minimal, and theeconomicsstructure made it difficult for many to leave their jobs and start tech companies.Today, the Iohdscape has changed dramatically. Our study found numerous startups led byentrppreneurs intheir 3Os, eager tomake theirmark.Thenumber of Al startups hasgrowneach year-now around 4,500, with 40% founded in the last three years. Of the 150+ weanalyzed witha combined funding~$3.5billion, over80% have alreadyraised $1million orSmore, and half of those have secured over $5 million. Considering how young most of thesefirms are, India's Al ecosystem appears robust and thriving.Wide Breadth, No Tail: We were surprised by the range of Al use cases we encountered.It's rare to find even four or five startups doing exactly the same thing. Even after groupingsimilarfields,we identified27distinctstreams representedbythese Alfirms.Processautomationisthemostprevalent,whilemoreroutineapplicationslikechatbots,text-to-voice, or text-to-video remain popular. Yet, the Al landscape in India is far from beingdominated by monotonous chatbot or service provider models. We discovered numerousventures working on cutting-edge innovations. Some diagnostics startups are focuseddiscovery. One company has deployed Al agents to interview large numbers of candidatessimultaneously.Others-OlaKrutrim,Sarvam,andCoRover(plus Fractal,a unicorn)-arebuilding their own LLMs, while some are poised to disrupt the financial research industry.The Top 10?: We have highlighted a selection of startups that stood out in our initialstudy. This list features a diverse mix in terms of funding levels and industry focus. Ourpicks include companies operating in healthcare, advertising, logistics, finance, contentgeneration, and deepfake detection, with each use case expected to experience significantgrowth in the coming years. While it is still too early to single out a clear leader given thenascent stage of the sector, it is increasingly likely that some of the future tech giants couldemerge from the names discussed in this report.www.bernsteinresearch.com DETAILSINVESTMENT SUMMARYWe were surprised by the ongoing boom in Al funding, with over 4,5o0 startups in India alone. Our assessment of offerings fromIndian startups indicates a wide application of Al across sectors. The most disruptive Al tools are those that increase operationalefficiency across industries. Al is effectively replacing humans in human-centric operations-IT, customer service, investmentmanagement, and research are naturally the most disrupted. In most other sectors, such as healthcare, consumer, retail, andlogistics, Al primarily acts as an efficiency generator, with potential for margin accretion and the ability to offer better servicesand products. Another important aspect to watch is which Al company or companies will emerge from India to achieve globalrelevance. We will not write off the India story. While we are behind, as in most other emerging sectors, the gap is not so greatthat we cannot catch up.CODIFYING THE AI BOOMIt is perhaps a travesty of justice that, despite being called the hub of tech talent, India does not boast innovative tech productsor a major product-based tech company-rather, it is home to a group of giant IT services firms adept at maintaining existingsoftware and platforms.The Gen Al revolutionthreatensthat business model.Yet,India hasbeen quick to react.Today,it boaststheircorebusinessfocustoAl.The million-dollar question at this stage is: are Indian Al startups truly innovative, or are they merely rehashing existing solutionsidentifying future giants where investor value will be created and for assessing the country's economic future in the age of Al. Inthis note, we have assessed 169 Indian Al st