India Set to Build Scalable Indigenous AI Products, Voice-Led Apps Likely to Lead: Report

New Delhi — India’s massive digital user base and relatively low customer acquisition costs are creating strong conditions for building scalable artificial intelligence products, with voice-driven applications expected to lead the next wave of consumer AI, according to a report by Arkam Ventures.

The venture capital firm said the first consumer AI application in India to cross 200 million users is likely to be voice-led rather than English-prompt based, reflecting the country’s multilingual population and the growing adoption of Indic language interfaces.

According to the report, India’s deep data ecosystem could enable three or more AI-native services companies built in the country to scale to over $1 billion in annual revenue within five years.

It also projected that AI-native lending platforms could originate more consumer credit than all private sector banks combined over the next decade.

The report highlighted that more than $2.5 billion has already been committed towards building AI data centre infrastructure in India. Combined with a three-to-four-times cost advantage over global peers, this gives Indian startups a strong edge while allowing them to tap global markets more efficiently.

“With over 850 million digital users and one of the world’s largest developer ecosystems, India is powering the growth of global AI platforms — not only as a consumer but also as a builder of AI-driven solutions,” the report noted.

The firm identified four key pillars that could shape India’s AI future: population-scale consumer AI built on Indic, voice-first design; business-to-business AI products; globally competitive AI solutions; and AI-native services supported by Indian engineering talent and local infrastructure.

Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures, said artificial intelligence represents one of the most transformative technological shifts of the current era and could significantly expand the benefits of digitalisation at a national scale.

He added that existing challenges such as limited GPU supply, high computing costs, and the lack of indigenous AI infrastructure are being addressed by entrepreneurs, creating fertile ground for a new generation of AI startups in India.

Meanwhile, Rahul Chandra, also Managing Director at Arkam Ventures, said the most promising AI companies from India are likely to emerge at the intersection of deep technology and real-world problem-solving, where innovation can directly address large-scale challenges.

With inputs from IANS