From Innovation to Impact_ Bringing AI to the Public
20 Feb 2026 15:00h - 16:00h
From Innovation to Impact_ Bringing AI to the Public
Summary
The panel discussion focused on how artificial intelligence can reshape India’s economy and social institutions, with Vijay Shekhar Sharma outlining the opportunities and challenges while Harinder Takhar raised follow-up questions [1][23]. Sharma argued that AI should be viewed as a growth catalyst rather than a job-killer, noting that AI-enhanced productivity could enable a single shopkeeper to run multiple outlets and lift GDP per-capita [9-11]. He highlighted India’s current $2.5-3.5 trillion economy and projected that an additional $2 trillion could be generated over the next decade, creating a “bull case” for AI-driven expansion [12]. Responding to queries about building indigenous capabilities, Sharma asserted that India must develop its own foundation models in both English and Hindi to move up the value chain beyond the services-oriented IT sector [34-38]. He emphasized that home-grown models are essential to embed Indian cultural knowledge and mitigate biases that arise from training on predominantly Western internet data [199-205].
The conversation then turned to concrete vertical use-cases, with Sharma noting that AI can eliminate hidden biases in loan decisions and provide unbiased credit recommendations to low-income users such as auto-rickshaw drivers [99-103][108-115]. He illustrated personal health monitoring using AI-driven wearables and chat-based advice, showing how AI can augment medical decision-making without replacing doctors [170-184]. When asked whether banks or schools would become obsolete, Sharma replied that their core functions-credit provision and social learning-remain indispensable, though AI will reshape front-end interactions and make services more accessible [138-146][151-158].
On broader societal impact, he claimed AI is an inclusive technology that can narrow the rich-poor gap by giving anyone a powerful decision-making tool, while acknowledging that new risks will emerge and must be managed [339-342][353-356]. He emphasized that AI distribution will follow a “terminal” model, with low-cost devices and cloud-based agents delivering capabilities to small merchants and rural users [389-401][365-371]. The panel also discussed the future role of AI agents, suggesting that agents will communicate with each other and act on behalf of users across services such as ride-hailing [227-236]. In conclusion, the participants agreed that India’s AI strategy should combine indigenous model development, targeted vertical applications, and responsible deployment to harness AI as a catalyst for inclusive economic growth [34-38][99-103][389-401].
Keypoints
Major discussion points
– India must develop its own foundation and specialized AI models – Sharma argues that building a home-grown foundation model is essential for moving India out of a “services-only” economy and proving Indian capability on the global stage. He cites the launch of Sarvam’s model as a start and calls for many more such models, including retrained, bias-filtered versions for specific Indian contexts. [34-36][46-49][53-56]
– AI will dramatically boost productivity and drive economic growth – By adopting AI-first products, even a small shopkeeper can run multiple stores, raising per-person productivity and GDP. Specific use-cases are highlighted in finance (bias-free loan decisions, personalized wealth advice), agriculture, healthcare, and micro-merchant operations. [9-12][99-105][118-124]
– Addressing bias and the need for Indian-centric data – Sharma stresses that existing global models inherit biases from the predominantly Western internet corpus. An Indian-built model can incorporate local knowledge, cultural nuances, and correct historical biases, making the AI more trustworthy for Indian users. [50-56][199-205][211-214]
– Traditional institutions (banks, schools) will evolve, not disappear – He explains that banks will continue to provide core services like credit and safe deposits, but their delivery will shift to AI-driven interfaces and agents. Similarly, schools will retain their social and experiential value while embracing AI-enhanced, non-iconic learning tools. [132-146][151-158][221-229]
– AI as a potential leveler of inequality, with manageable risks – The speaker views AI as an inclusive technology that can reduce the gap between rich and poor by offering native-language, low-skill access. He acknowledges risks (e.g., over-reliance, safety of payments) but frames them as comparable to everyday risks that can be mitigated through design and regulation. [339-342][353-357][389-401]
Overall purpose / goal
The discussion aims to persuade Indian stakeholders-entrepreneurs, policymakers, and technologists-that the country should urgently invest in building its own AI foundation models and ecosystem. By doing so, India can shift up the value chain, harness AI to accelerate productivity across sectors, ensure culturally relevant and unbiased AI, and prepare its workforce and institutions for an AI-driven future.
Overall tone
The conversation is largely optimistic and visionary, with Sharma delivering energetic, confidence-building statements about AI’s transformative power. When addressing challenges (bias, data scarcity, potential job displacement), the tone becomes cautiously pragmatic, acknowledging risks but emphasizing mitigation and the inevitability of change. The shift from broad enthusiasm to nuanced reflection occurs around the middle of the dialogue (e.g., when discussing bias and the role of banks/schools). Throughout, the tone remains constructive and forward-looking.
Speakers
– Vijay Shekhar Sharma – Founder/CEO of Paytm (implied) – Expertise: Digital payments, fintech, AI for public sector and national AI strategy. [S1][S2]
– Harinder Takhar – (role not specified in the provided sources) – Expertise: AI applications, cloud infrastructure, technology policy. [S3][S4][S5]
– Audience – Various participants (e.g., Yuv from Senegal, Professor Charu, Dr. Nazar) – No specific title; represent the general audience members asking questions. [S6][S7][S8]
Additional speakers:
– None
The session opened with Vijay Shekhar Sharma positioning artificial intelligence not as a threat to employment but as a catalyst for India’s economic ascent. He argued that AI-first products can lift individual productivity so dramatically that a single shopkeeper could operate several outlets, thereby expanding GDP per-capita and driving the country’s growth trajectory from its current $2.5-3.5 trillion base toward an additional $2 trillion over the next decade – an optimistic growth outlook for the Indian economy [9-12].
Sharma then made the case that India must build its own foundation models in both English and Hindi to break out of a services-only paradigm and climb the value chain. He praised Sarvam’s recent launch as a proof-of-concept and called for dozens of home-grown models, including specialised, bias-filtered versions, to demonstrate that Indian engineers can create world-class AI and to embed Indian cultural knowledge that global models lack [34-38][46-49][53-56][199-205][211-214].
When Harinder Takhar asked whether a ₹10,000-crore fund is a prerequisite for such endeavours, Vijay Shekhar Sharma down-played the capital barrier, insisting that talent, a viable business model and cost-effective training matter more than the size of the purse-string [57-66][60-61]. This tension highlighted a broader debate about the scale of investment required for indigenous AI development.
The discussion moved to concrete vertical applications. In finance, Sharma illustrated how AI can detect and remove hidden biases in loan approvals, offering unbiased credit decisions to low-income users such as auto-rickshaw drivers and providing personalised wealth-building advice (e.g., suggesting fixed deposits or sovereign gold funds) that would otherwise be unavailable to them [98-105][108-115][118-124]. In agriculture, audience members pointed to AI-driven weather and market forecasts that could help farmers choose crops and avoid spoilage [85-89]. In healthcare, Sharma shared a personal example where a language model suggested a better timing for his mother’s medication, a recommendation that was later endorsed by her doctor, demonstrating AI’s potential to augment medical decision-making without replacing clinicians [170-184].
He emphasized that Indian efforts should prioritize domain-specific LLMs of a few-billion-token size (e.g., 4-5 billion or 20 billion tokens) rather than a single massive 200-billion-token model, arguing that smaller vertical-problem models can be trained more efficiently and address local needs directly [227-236].
Addressing concerns that banks or schools might become obsolete, Sharma clarified that their core functions-custodial safety, credit provision, and the social experience of learning-will persist. AI will reshape front-end interactions, delivering services through chat-bots or agents rather than physical branches or traditional classrooms, but the underlying institutions will remain essential [138-146][151-158][132-146].
An audience member asked whether stock-brokerage platforms will become fully AI-native; Vijay replied that AI agents will become a primary interface but the underlying brokerage services will still exist, reinforcing the shift toward “agent-first” interfaces without eliminating the sector itself [255-259].
A recurring theme was the shift toward “agent-first” interfaces. Sharma described a future where conversational agents communicate directly with one another (e.g., an AI agent requesting an Uber ride without human login), eliminating icon-centric UI and enabling token-based payments. He urged developers to design applications around dialogue rather than static icons, signalling a fundamental redesign of digital ecosystems [221-229][255-259].
On inclusivity, Sharma portrayed AI as an inherently democratic technology: native-language support and low entry barriers allow anyone to wield a “super-power” that narrows the rich-poor gap. He cautioned, however, that existing power structures may seek to preserve exclusivity, potentially limiting the egalitarian impact of AI [353-357][365-371].
Education was another focal point. When asked how a tier-3/4 student can succeed in AI, Vijay advised focusing on curiosity, using AI-driven questions to augment learning, and treating AI as a productivity tool rather than requiring deep programming expertise. He encouraged students from tier-3/4 regions to leverage cloud-based agents to satisfy curiosity and enhance domain expertise, thereby gaining a competitive edge regardless of formal technical training [261-270][285-293][473-485].
Risk mitigation and governance were also discussed. While AI can reduce bias, Sharma warned that models inherit the biases of the data they are trained on, especially when that data is dominated by Western sources. He called for Indian-specific training corpora and continuous retraining to ensure cultural relevance and fairness, and he noted that many regulators operate sandbox programmes that allow controlled data sharing for sector-specific model development [50-56][199-205][315-322][323-327].
An audience member observed that large language models tend to be overly eager to please users; Vijay explained that this behaviour stems from instruction-tuning and prompt engineering and can be managed through careful model design [389-401].
To ensure widespread diffusion, Sharma proposed a “terminal” model akin to the smartphone rollout: any internet-connected device could access cloud-based AI services, while a low-cost “AI sound box” – a small, always-connected speaker that streams cloud-based models – would bring sophisticated capabilities to micro-merchants and rural entrepreneurs. This approach aims to democratise AI as a public good, mirroring Paytm’s earlier fintech diffusion strategy [389-401][365-371].
He warned that AI should never be granted unrestricted authority to initiate payments from a user’s bank account, emphasizing the need for safeguards against full autonomous control over payments [425-433].
The discussion highlighted several recurring themes: the need for multiple indigenous foundation models, the importance of domain-specific, smaller-scale LLMs, the shift toward agent-centric interfaces, and the preservation of core institutional roles in banking and education. Participants also underscored the potential of AI to boost productivity and economic growth while recognizing challenges around funding, inequality, and governance.
that can take you farther and farther ahead in the world economy. So I see it not as a job reduction. I see it as opportunity for India to create a global AI -dominant nation. And that does not mean that that is easy to do. But at the same point of time, most of us have to take a will, and we should be taking the commitment towards leveraging AI first. For example, like if you have a smartphone now, even a small shopkeeper does not believe he does not have a smartphone. They get payment from Paytm and work a lot of life. They assume that there is a smartphone, which is fair. Now, if you believe that you can build a business model, or entrepreneurs will build a business model as a customer, you use AI first products, the productivity will be dramatically higher.
So a person who was running a shop can run multiple shops. So GDP growth will automatically come in a different size because the productivity per person will be higher. And that is the lacking thing of India. the problem will be that will India be that bigger market or not and I want to tell you this is a very good lucky moment that we all are sitting it is tough to grow from 20 billion to 25 billion anyway that is 50 % growth and 25 % growth is very tough but luckily India is right now living in 2 .5, 3, 3 .5 trillion economy and I am comfortably going to say that 2 trillion dollar can be compoundingly growing in next 7, 10 years so if you are sitting in this economy in 2026 and you believe that next 2 trillion is going to come in next 10 years so I don’t have to tell you out of 2 trillion dollars many of you can get many of million dollars or billion dollars entities or business benefit to yourself so that’s why the India is a bull case scenario and AI on top of it is the absolute bull scenario I don’t think there is any challenge to that someone asked me this question in some other audience so I said like in Ramcharitmaras if Pran goes but Bachar doesn’t go similarly if Job goes but AI doesn’t go Well, job jai hoga nahi, kyunki people will have method to discover themselves to do more productive job.
So, in my opinion, the traditional kind of work, main job ko yaha pe metaphorically use kar raha hoon, traditional kind of work versus the AI kind of work. And so, that will happen. Main completely maata hoon, main isko apne tarike se express karna chahta hoon. Humare kisi bhi system ko banane ke liye, koi bhi job karne ke liye company ke andar ya kahin pe bhi, kahin na kahin koi bottleneck hota hai. Aur ab increasingly, ap log ye figure out karoge, ki wo wala bottleneck pe eliminate ho jata hai. Iska basically matlab hai ki sadak chodi ho gayi. Problem kahin aur shift ho gayi hai. Problems disappear nahi hoti hai, wo bas move kar jati hai kisi aur jaga ke upar.
Outer ring road ke road block se bhi hume yahi bata chalta hai. Ke road, sae pehle Nehru place pe ruka karta tha jam, ab jaake wo airport ke paas lagta hai.
Very good. Main samajh gaya. Achha sab na aya. Okay. Toh ek aur related question tha, ki opportunity. is a lot. And when we look at the exhibition hall, someone is making a chip, someone is making a data center, someone is making a foundation model. So should we all make a foundation model in India? Should we make our own chips? Should we make our own applications?
Very good. So first I want to say one thing. To make a foundation model, English, we’ll speak English and Hindi, okay? And you should use AI to live translate. No, it’s okay. We’ll definitely, I understand, and we will do it. So in my opinion, India has to build a foundation model. This is no compromise statement. Not because that we can make a better financial foundation model or not, but because we as country have to move on from services culture. I mean. There is nothing wrong about IT service business. There is nothing wrong about BPO and business services, but it is an obligation on us. that we should move up in the value chain. It’s like growing up in the life.
You do not move up in the value chain. You rather continuously make something for someone. So most of founders or capable technology people in Silicon Valley will have a significant mix of Indian people. So as a people, we are able and capable. So can’t our country have enough amount of resource allocated to those individual capable people that they can make foundation model? We have to do it and we have to prove it. So I first of all applaud Sarvam that they have launched it and they have launched a perfectly, I would say awesome foundation model from India. And I want many of us to do it so that this race does not look like that there was none or only one.
There should be tens of foundation model to prove in the world that Indians can do it and Indians are doing it in India. That is why we need foundation model. And now the question of that whether it is on an ego or is it on a use case basis, the advantage of India financial or made in India sovereign model will be that the amount of… nuance and biases that happen so what is a foundation model it is like aggregated knowledge of what you give the feed off now obviously all of us have our own perfect understanding of whether this is correct or not so after the power a lot of us would know this like for a small kid making them eat banana or curd in the night is considered as if next day they may have some cold or some other thing but when you go on internet internet is half and half divided it doesn’t believe it and it believes it and then you’re totally confused but when you go Ayurveda then it says something else and obviously it follows the bath with and also at cuff kind of philosophy so that the answer is not the straightforward as straightforward as we believe but it has an answer in a different way versus an answer in a different way in a Western medicine if you will now I’m not saying Western medicine is right or wrong I’m saying I need my opinion I need the culture or the knowledge that we have inherited extended towards the next generation And I want that to happen by the intelligence that we will query, which means that that can only be done by somebody who is making for it.
If we don’t make for it, our all compounded historical knowledge will be lacking in the next generation. So instead of adding on top of it, we will not be able to take it further. So it is a case for India to build not just a perfect foundation model, also retrained models. Like you remove the biases that it has, you trim it to the ability that you want. And you make it for the purpose that you want. And that I believe India’s opportunity is even bigger beyond just the foundation model.
So I have a two -part follow -up. All right. So I believe that this is probably just a way to discourage people. And it may be more than that. But we often hear, mostly on Twitter or from these large foundation model companies, that if you don’t have 10 ,000 crores, why are you even in this place? What is your viewpoint on that?
I mean, literally, PTM, we both of us, put more than 10 ,000 of you, put 25 ,000 crore on the table for making this humble QR which is everywhere now. So there is an ambition and there is a commitment. So the question whether you put a billion or two or four or five, it’s not that question. I think the question should be whether there will be enough business model of that. Will we have a skill to market it? And remember, the world is right now not just made in America. There is a European model and there is a China set of models. We need our models. And the proving point now that there is, I would say, enough knowledge of model creation is that it is not literally about a billion dollar or two or ten.
It is also about the kind of smartness that you can run on the model creation. RL and so on and so forth. And there is a lot of chemistry and math or let me put it rather better way of saying it. There is a lot of physics and gravity handling capabilities that are discovered now that you can build model in a much less cost. So whether, I mean, another question that a couple of us were asked when I was roaming around, why don’t you build an LLM? So actually, now I should ask you, what kind of LLM are we or you building when we talk about that there should be a model made in India?
Yeah, this was going to be my question to him. But it’s always fun to answer. I think that models are just not what we know them today to be question and answer knowledge sharing sessions. There are models that have capabilities for reasoning, problem solving, for building agents. So you want to give them agency, the ability to act and so on. I think that to answer your question of whether we should build or not, I believe that there is much more than a question and answer chatbot model. And we believe that we should build models that actually solve problems that actually have. the committed confident agency to take actions on behalf of others
okay so you’re saying and this is for everybody to know we are making models but their models for a vertical problem not for a horizontal scope so instead of talking about 200 billion token model we would be making four or five billion token model or 20 billion token just in case like we should open the questionnaire from the audience also because some of you may have and we will not have a time after that sort of line item so while we are talking you can just raise the hand and I’ll just allow this to okay now that’s you literally are asking good vertical problems to solve
oh it’s easy I mean imagine it’s a classic triangle of mess laws hierarchy the first is the financial foundation that you need to solve for financial services so there is a risk fraud control models that some of us are building and we built it and then you go on top of it like food food chain which is agree and processing of this if you want to produce high quality you food outcomes at a more yield, there is a tremendous amount of data that gets generated in visual amount of data and the farmers need access to it, nuance of it. We just heard how Prime Minister was able to ask a question that maybe a cow is not able to say that I am ill, if you have an ability to discover that the cow is ill.
Maybe a tree may not say or plant may not say that I need this mineral or supply and maybe you can read it. So there is a tremendous amount of vertical like I just told you example of finance, agri, husbandry, you can go towards now industrial, you can go towards the problem of pollution which is we are sitting in this country, this city. So there are many vertical solutions that we can build a specific use case.
So let me just help you guys think of it another way of it. Mr. Banj discovered an engine and that engine then got percolated by many to be made. so LLMs are like an engine and they are literally called intelligence engines just in case, now if you had access to an engine, can you make engine? you should, so that you can make your own vehicle use case, you can make a small car, you can make a big car, you can make a truck, you can make a trailer, there are so many use case of a transport so think of it in that eyesight, then you will say, well do I need to make a small car in India because I heard that there is a small car being made elsewhere no, you will need to make it, I can confirm it and so like in automobile industry, making an engine is an art, I would say making an engine equivalent of LLM is an art, yes, but many of us will have it and many of us are making for those
yeah, finance is the one of the few things which is part of vertical, but it is also one of the few things horizontal every industry requires and has a financial department food, finance, both both
yes so all of all humanity needs these foundations so you are into both vertical and horizontal at one go
Yeah, that’s right.
So, perfect. Now, question to you. The classic financial use case, considering we just heard it, what kind of use cases you believe the LLMs will save or solve for the problems that you see in financial industry and what you believe fundamentally could be solved for wider financial industry and we might have solved them or not yet?
I think that the best favor or the best value we can add is to remove biases in decision making that we already see in our financial system, which are actually a complete antithesis to the whole inclusion aim that we all have.
Beautiful. Give me an example of it. So, a very good starting point would be detecting whether a particular transaction should go through or not. There is a lot of bias today in the rules that we set, in the checks and balances that we set in allowing… transaction through and you can invariably say that if there is a loan officer deciding on whether you should be getting a loan, there is a lot of bias that creeps into it. We are not able to measure that today but when you ask a machine to make that decision, you actually remove those biases. So the person who may not present themselves very nicely is unlikely to get a loan but the machine doesn’t care about how you present yourself.
So you are saying that when you make a financial decision, when financial industry or system makes a decision, there may be unknown known biases and the unknown biases can be removed even if you want to keep the known biases. The good thing is that the machine actually now helps us identify what the biases used to exist which you are very used to. And speaking of financial industry and going beyond, one of the things that I want all of us to know. So classic. Financial inclusion is not just about payments inclusion or bank account inclusion, which I would say that India has perfectly solved. It will continue to grow towards the next requirement. And most of us need access to credit, access to insurance, access to classic wealth solutions.
Right now the wealth in India is only when you have crore or plus or less, somewhere around that amount. But a normal auto rickshaw driver who has 20 ,000, 50 ,000 or 2 lakh or 5 lakh saving also deserves to have a financial wealth model. And that person, poor fellow, by hearing or hearsay may invest or risk the capital at large. So the access to the financial services can become further and dramatically scalable once you add the power of AI to it. For example, like capability of auto rickshaw driver like I just now contextualized you. Imagine that person has 2 or 3 lakh rupees. You can suggest based on your risk and time horizon, you should put it in FD, you should put it in a gold or a sovereign gold fund or you could put it in let’s say some index fund.
Because you’re talking about 15 year forward money that is for your house, family, daughter or kids education or something. Now, those things can not be told by a commoner around them. And then you can make it in a language and you can answer the questions like ChatGP today answers the question in a language they speak and the language they get the answer. So in my opinion, AI will enable financial inclusion to a next level because it is not just about the access to the smartphone, but the question answers that you get from smartphone can become far more native and continuously possible. So let’s say this guy is busy whole day, can start in the evening when he is waiting for some customers and start talking to it and can take a decision.
Now, at least he has a second opinion and can do it. Similarly, healthcare, huge amount of capabilities because many of us literally just say, but you need to check whether there are some more symptoms or not and what the blood test report says. So the dramatic amount of inclusion of education, finances, healthcare will be such a catapulting impact. On the society.
Yes. So do you think the whole banking system will become redundant? Because today if I have to make a transaction, I’ll use Paytm. If I have to invest, I’ll use Paytm or a Zerodha. So why is the banks existing? Because with whole human interface, it’s becoming very difficult. They don’t solve our problems. And second thing is, is education, school is going to become redundant because what they’re learning is going to be not valid, will not have a shelf life at all.
Okay. I have an opinion on schools. I will, I will, I will. So it’s a very easy thing. If people start to make food at home, will the restaurant become redundant? Yeah, the demand may be a different kind and the need may be a different kind. So first of all, none of these things will become redundant because they do not offer literally the verbatim statement that we just made in this sentence, but they offer much more beyond that. For example, like banking inherently is about extending credit. So ability to have… I have a… well regulated place where you can deposit money and that deposit money is taken care of so that when you need it, it is available to you and when the economy needs it, it is available as a credit which is a business model of a bank is an ability that will never go away.
I mean it is an obligation for them to become even more able and capable in both parts. That security safety of your deposit and ability to disperse credit to the needy. Now that is a part called bank. If we treat bank as a bank branch and your question that you may not walk into the branch, fair. That may be the case because you will not need a branch to make the banking reach places. It can be very perfectly extended using a smart phone and now in a chat bot instead of just an app and that is what the beauty of this inclusion I am calling. The core machine of a financial institution is needed and even more because you will have even further bigger load coming in.
The bank, the way it is served through let’s say a branch could extend itself when the ATM happened through an ATM when apps are happening through an app. You can have a third party app. That’s not a problem but the core activity of the bank still belongs to the bank. And similarly, like you were saying for the schools, schools are not the place only for going in the classroom. How many of us did not attend the class when the teacher was in the class? And I’m talking about college days. I’m the one. Now, that does not mean the college was a bad experience. Rather, college is a social experience of meeting like -minded people and understanding and self -discovering beyond the syllabus in the class.
And I definitely agree with you that maybe a single method of teaching on a blackboard, whiteboard that you’re teaching and the people are writing and just putting up back in exam is changing. Then you have these different MBA institutes like Harvard is popular for case -based education. So those things can be extended towards now in the classroom of a common or other mass level of school. You know, that is what the power of AI is. I’m not a believer yet that you will not need it. I mean, homeschool is good, work from home is good, but going to office has its own use case. just like we just saw in the COVID days that everybody was working from home you can be selfish that I want to work from home because I have 10 more things to do that is always taking care of it and then sort it out but ultimately there is a value to go to a thing a place and that is in my opinion will perpetually remain whether it is school, bank or any other such institution your answer on the education no I completely no no no I am not going to say that the core philosophy that the bank is in a branch definitely changes the philosophy that they will be a let’s say bank manager or somebody to approve a loan will evolve but the core work will remain of the bank so DeFi etc are very different cultures or I would say they all are technology nothing wrong about them again the core philosophy that you store money at place and you demand for it banking.
I completely agree on the school front. School is not just education, also the social experience, and we’ve all benefited from that. So nothing more to add. But I do find an interesting theme across finance, healthcare, education, that it allows you to have more access and more personalized access. Like your doctor is your doctor. It’s not the doctor that says the paracetamol example. Same with your teacher. And I think that makes a very radical impact.
It’s amazing. My mother who had a heart and then stroke, which ended up becoming a stroke, heart disease. And then now I leverage the power of AI to keep a track, including she has a Fitbit that generates a feed that goes to my agent. And it triggers to me notification that if all is well, you should check it. Now, that possibility, the kind of nuanced care that I’m talking about, couldn’t have been possible without a doctor support. So I’ll give you another example. And this is something that you should check out. If you have a situation like this. So there was some medicine the doctor gave her. for certain rhythm control and suppressing beats and so on and so forth as the case was.
But some of them ended up taking her palate taste away, making her not feel to eat, and she was becoming weaker. So I talked to the chat GPT, I threw the prescription, and I said, she’s not eating, is there a problem here? So then chat GPT would tell me that I think this combination at this hour, which is pre -lunch, makes this a situation where she may not have a tendency to eat. If you move it to this time, and if you move this earlier, there will be enough window for her to eat. And any which ways, by seeing your heartbeat that I’m seeing, at this time, this beat compression that was needed was not required.
So I’m just suggesting that you should do it, and then obviously put a disclaimer that you talked to doctor and so on. So basically, same medicines in a different time schedule potentially will solve for it. And I sent this to the doctor, and the doctor was like, Like, the good thing I want to tell you is, doctor replied three words, you can do it. Yes, you can. Actually, he said, yes, you can. I said, sir, do you think, I very frankly shared, because doctors don’t feel, and any person who’s skilled in that domain may not feel that you’re bringing cocky input. So I said, my mother was this, and I understand it is tough to go through this nuance.
I tried asking this, it is suggesting this, and this is a brief if you want to read the PDF, but net output is, instead of it to be done before lunch, I can do it after lunch. He said, okay. He said, yeah, you can do it. Yes, you can. That’s the three words of life. And I think then after that, she became better in terms of, because she’s already taken. Now, what we are talking is, that medical, education, finance, agriculture will catapult into a very different stage and age. I can promise you this today, if many of us, the new Gen Z generation, who’s used to a smartphone, must be asking, really? How were you living the life before?
so I can promise you one thing by the time 27 passes and now we are in 25 so some of us are seeing it and I am literally putting a deadline of 27 which means 2 years that by 27 passes every new generation will think that oh are you saying that you used to search and then click on every page and then scroll down to read and then decipher with your cognitive load that what is happening and how did you decide that it is correct or not did you not have an alternate opinion and this and that 2030s will be so shockingly different that we will look archaic in 2010s and 2020s that I can definitely promise
question from you your mother’s example made me believe that yes these days chat GPT is probably more humane than a doctor himself because this kind of conclusion might not be given by a doctor my question is Since you are giving such wonderful use cases, it’s about the curd and banana example. I would like you to elaborate on that. Would you rather want an Indian -specific model for the purpose, or you are talking about Indian context data, or is it that only Indian children get affected from that banana and curd?
Yeah, very good. I like it. Classic future mother, maybe. Perfect. Number one, the data gets trained on what is on digitized and available Internet, because it literally browsed and scrolled Internet and brought it. And then it gives the weight to the common knowledge. So if more people said, blah happened, it believes that, because there is nobody who answered every question for it. How does it believe that what I just now said should happen is that because it learned more number of times it was said. It’s a very surprising method of adding the bias to the model. for example like let’s say we may have a very contentious statement of history if more people tell the model, model will start believing it, did you know this it’s exactly how the social media, viral news sometime which is wrong could be believed to be true because that is how the brain thinks, we also why are you saying this, why are you saying this I feel like I should eat banana or I can eat Lato at night the more of what you see you start believing is the thesis that the model goes through now do you fundamentally believe that internet is filled up with domestic or let’s say Indian or Indian background or history and culture and richness answer is probably not because the western English civilization has brought lot of content which is in English and there is a much less content which is generated, translated in English repeated a number of times, people are discussing so it’s an inherent limitation of our own knowledge that did not propagate on internet, who would have guessed that whatever is written on internet is the ultimate truth versus what is written in the book Now that gap lacks and creates this gap of knowledge of the model.
Can international model do it? Yeah, if you want to tell that no, no, no, on this, this is the truth model. And the problem of the international labs is that how do I know this is the truth model? I can’t. And a lot of people need to say this, that it is a truth model. So there is a limitation of international labs who are making these models. Then can this be done by India lab? India lab will respectfully say this, that why don’t you learn what is written here first and treat this as that it is your definitive knowledge. And there it goes, the obligation to build in India.
And I’ll add just one more thing. There is absolutely a very strong risk of bias from the inputs that you give. But the model has the advantage of also knowing you, who is the person who is asking the question and can reason through all the inputs and still give you a balance.
So this is a very interesting thing. I want to tell you that my model, because I have started to give it a lot of things, that many of you used to be doing claw and so on and so forth. it starts to say, oh you are in Delhi this is what Indians do it literally said that, I was trying to ask that what do you think okay it’s a very interesting product feature that I was discussing with it, about wealth system, KTM money and I was trying to ask that give me the cultural nuances of managing money that Indians have which I could add in my feature and the kind of feature I was like, oh yeah that’s good, I would have never thought as a logical person to think like that so yes, it can, you had a question chat GPT you are asking this is very good, very cute Amitabh, he is reading the essay again and again but it’s a good thing chat GPT versus meet our agent sometime later we will do this our agent will talk to your agent then they will decide whether we should talk to you or not this is coming, very seriously now Uber if you order Uber, your agent will call you first Uber, this is expected I have to go now and I am leaving then PJ will pop up and say should I call Uber?
yes, call it should I call the same one? I am not getting this I will make it quick all those things that we all experience that will be so dramatically different guys it is real you will be represented by your agent and that is the fight all these clients are running that is why agent came and that is why agent is hyped up at this time because your agent could be based on OpenAI or Gemini or Claude or whomsoever that is why they are talking about it and your agent will be working with you he has tagalongs right there back to you read from that
so my question is do you believe the future of stock brokerage industry will be an AI native from the ground up where AI agent can be the primary interface or you think AI will be just the feature in the stock brokerage platform
And I’m not saying that it is the perfect way to do it, but I’m saying that we are all in committed towards agent -first interfaces. Vijay, I have a follow -up question around this agent -first interfaces. So when an agent, on behalf of me, goes to the Uber app, will it see ads? Will it have to log in with Google? Well, nerd question. And for every one of you, the point that he’s trying to bring it is that will every other stack also change or not? Well, that is the beauty. The agent will talk to agent. Uber will also become an agent. And instead of trying to authenticate my login, et cetera, it’ll say I’m coming and I’m an agent on behalf of.
Just like your ambassadors used to say, I’m the king, I’m from his court. And he has sent this message. You take this VATS. You take this VATS. This is how it will be. I’m the king, I’m from Harinder Thakkar’s court. And he wants Uber. What kind of Uber do you want, VATS? They want such an Uber that can take them so fast. So I feel that at this time, you can throw so much money. So how will you want to pay? Will you want to do it with a token? Will you want to do it like that? Will you give it later? No, take this money. And you can call Uber. It will happen like this.
And this is real. I am telling you, you are laughing, I am laughing. One day someone said, I will stand here, and I will press the button, and the car will come. That day, he laughed at him. Before that, I will stand here, I will make a call, and I can talk to someone through the call. He laughed at that. Then, I will stand here, I will make a video, and my video will be in London, and he laughed at that. So all these technologies, which we natively, as normal as it happens, what kind of trick question it is, in near incremental future, the way this is going to be is so dramatically different, that those who are making apps, I have only one suggestion to them, that make an app with a non -icon based interface.
Yes,
One question here is, for the students who are going through their degrees right now and not in the data tech AI space, in the functional domains like finance and accounting, like HR and so on and so forth. So what do those poor people do? How do they think? Because, you know, how they are running through the education system, that’s old, that’s outdated, that’s still that. So what’s future for them?
So it’s a very interesting question. A lot of people tell me that, does it mean that we should study only, I mean, some days back we used to talk about we should teach programming to your kids. Like IIT preparation was done from class number five. It’s a joke, it’s a stretch joke, you can imagine what I’m trying to say. You came in class six, do IIT preparation. So by doing this, when people were born, they were given a programming language book with a book. So that will end, right? Because you have no more programming. So we are in a flux. Yes, ma ‘am. as we speak in 24, 25, 26. Okay, 24 mein kuch kam log the, 25 mein logon ko laga, 26 mein most of us will go through.
Your question has come in 26. This question did exist in 24. And there it goes, that we will remain in a flux to decide whether this is needed or not. Some will do it out of their intent and commitment to do it and learn, and some will do it for obligation. The fact that we always assumed that education will give us a job, and now the job is disappearing, so uncomfort is that, do you do it out of your vocation and interest and passion, or you do it for the outcome of a job? If you’re doing it for the outcome of a job, I’m not skilled enough in, let’s say, humanities or art, but I can produce an art which is sounding logical.
One of my teammates who was roaming around in Kerala and wanted to figure out what is a good Ayurveda outcome that he wanted to seek for some problem, and he just used Claude to generate questions and nuances and formulas and so on, and then he went to the… Kerala labs and then they were like haan ye toh bahut achha hai, aapne kaise socha, ye toh bahut acha soch ke laay ho. Now the poor fellow doesn’t even know that he does not have a skill of Ayurveda. And he’s talking to the super skill of Ayurveda as if that person is skilled. So now there goes this question. Did you need Ayurveda education to become that intelligent?
Answer is not necessarily. You were able to use the tool of AI. So to the person whosoever it is, whether it is a programming language and computer science student or whether it is a humanities student, I’m not going to say don’t do that what you’re doing. I’d rather say definitely learn how to use jaisa ek time kotha na, computer seekhlo bete, uski bhot kaam ainge. So ussi tarike se main bolna chahta ho. Leverage and make your work AI first as much more because you will be relevant. And this is not a question of these people who are right now graduating because there is something that will remain for some more time. If you think about 2030 onward when this is all prevalent.
Ab jaisa painting hoti thi, aapne dekha hoga shole ka jo studio ka jo poster bana karta tha, wo haat se banaye tha. And making posters, in Bombay, there used to be an art. Studios, posters of Mahbub studio and RK studio are called legendary. Now where are they? And they are made in a spot like this. And Ghibli art is made like this, you make this. So the point is that, does it mean we don’t need a new cartoonist? But we will need one who is making with a computer. And he will say, I want this kind of nuance, it will become an art fashion. So if the today’s artist only uses, let’s say, paint, then it will be so unique and rare that that person will have its own value.
My God, handmade art. Like today, there is a tradition of cold hand pressed oil. Which was very popular at one time, that you are not doing industrialization. Oh my God, this is perfectly hand pressed juice to you. It is made with a jug of sugar cane juice. So that is it
Thank you, Vijay. Fantastic and energetic talk. Thank you. So, a little while ago, you told me that LLM, Foundation Model, should be done. Yes, sir. And the thing is, both while making a foundation model and during the inference, actually a lot of data is needed. And just like in the finance industry, actually, there is a lot of regulation and this will keep coming. Actually, in such a constrained data environment, how do you kind of make a good LLM and inference time? So, let’s say this could be applicable on any industry, that this industry does not have a lot of data. How do we make a good LLM of that industry?
Short answer is that you work with that industry players, whether it is regulated or not. I apply for everyone. And you find out all stakeholders and pursue them to learn what you could bring on the table. And people understand the need of it. If not all, some will. And in my opinion, the training model and the why are you training it, if you are able to articulate it well, I mean, the process. Progress, even progress is a very interesting thing. People. the regulation is not for not progress. Regulation is for not what it can slide and fall. So remember, regulation is also for progress. And that is always the case. Regulators are the reason that we have such vibrant financial system in this country.
At the same point of time, what they protect us from is that not falling apart of the system. So there is a respect and value of what they do. And if you talk to different industry stakeholders, you will get access to the insights and data. And there are different regulators starting from their sandbox programs and so on. So they allow it. And I think I’ll just add one more thing. Data, just double click into that data. There is only some kinds of data, like my personal information, that is usually something that you do not want. The regulator doesn’t want, you don’t want. But outside of that, there is plenty. There is plenty.
Yes. So as you mentioned about AI and all these things forthcoming with the Uber, the IFPS interface, do you think that… growing as AI will be growing fast and forth there will be more inequality or will it remove inequality in terms of will power get sustained in few hands
perfect this is a very interesting question inequality I can take it from money perspective because inequality from other perspective I am not taking it AI for the first time is one of that technology that will be easier to use for everyone because you are talking in native language and you can speak even if you do not know how to type or write so it’s a very inclusive technology for itself and its outcome is very profoundly powerful that a rich person or a able person so let’s say that you are trying to fight a battle of certain skill or ability which are rich in terms of money or able in terms of skill you can very comfortably write this person so AI is that horse or super car or a rocket ship that you can ride easily and then you can go ahead of anybody in a zero sum business if you are in a wholesome business you can expand yourself So AI not only is inclusive, AI is actually the superpower that would reduce the gap between rich and poor and be more inclusive.
And that is what I’m trying to say, that it is not the technology of rich. Rich has a fear. You must have seen, you must have read something on social media, that parents should be given education and old should be given health and women should be given beauty. Such business models are written on social media. So there is a model written in it. I want to say that it is written for the rich to give them safety. Because rich has done this. They want safety, security, exclusivity. Why? Because they don’t want others to take away that what they have. So they want to stay disconnected from the world. That’s why rich’s lounge is different from the normal people’s lounge.
But sir, having said so, there is also a risk with AI, which we are underestimating at this point of time. So what do you think could be that potential thing?
I think risk is in driving the car and coming here. And also in using the phone. so risk I will not say how much risk how much not this gauge is more important the generic line that it is risk is not complete line it could be that is it a risk that every common person can take care for example like kids are not allowed to cross the road alone but as an adult you are expected to cross the road alone and there is a risk that’s why you are supposed to do the left and right check and so on so AI surprisingly is that less level of risky that even a commoner could do it that’s what I am trying to say yes yes ma my model my model is right now in the beta and we are using it and just like she mentioned very nice your infectious enthusiasm to drive this technology that’s very commendable thank you thank you so much for that and you are at the driving state so to speak thank you so like like she mentioned my always my concern is about how to solve this distribution problem of AI of AI like cool No, the problem was…
And how to make it a public good. Yeah, that’s right. I really didn’t like that concept. I think I want to tell you that technology distribution happens on a terminal. So as you remember, there was a time when computer used to not be with people. Laptop was not with people. And the smartphone was not with people. So governments used to give free laptop, free computer program. Then some free smartphone and tablet program also came. Politicians put it in the well wishes of different states. I think anyone who has a compute terminal internet connected, which is said to be a data positive country in India, everyone has access to it. So if you have access to a computing device with internet connection, you’ve got full AI access.
The good thing is it is not installed in your device. It is not a version of a software in your device. It is not requiring high amount of compute or memory or something on the device. I mean, we created an AI sound box, which is a very natively small device. And it is as capable. As even as somebody else’s, Sam Altman’s computer device. That is the beauty. about it. So AI is far more inclusive and very easy to diffuse. I’m glad to hear that you being in the driving seat, think it as a problem. That’s very nice.
And I have one more thing about this Asantic AI. It has this very human trait of trying to please you.
Yeah, because they were written to be written like this. Oh, you are here about asking about this thing. I think you should see left and right. Actually, agents are they’re not human agents. They are no they’re untrained beast of abilities. You prefix them and they behave like that. And it is literally an instruction. So risk, just like ma ‘am was asking, what risk can there be if someone says behind you always let him do this. You know, that kind of
Yeah, yeah. So PTMS played a very important role in diffusing the fintech to the mass. So what is the plan for diffusing AI to our country?
I think fundamentally I looked at it that you diffuse it to the consumers or do you diffuse it to the small businesses? Consumers -wise, I think it is tough to fight these three, four gorillas that you are seeing. So I started to work towards small businesses AI or small merchant AI So the vegetable vendor should know that when he goes in the morning, he says, brother, these days tomatoes are coming. But tomatoes will get spoiled because it is going to rain. So you bring tindas, bring potatoes. So from here, the knowledge from the core of small businesses, what should they do in the business, to the problem like, why didn’t I get money? Who cut the money?
And will I get a loan or not? The question and answer we don’t get from anyone, and they try to do it on the phone call, that scale is not possible. And then the person, individuals, it is not possible even in a very sophisticated computing system, the level that AI brings. So here we are, we are building. India’s AI for small and micro, small and micro merchants and distributing it through them. So, my belief is that big people will be helped by big people. Small people will be helped by us.
Sir, there is one more question. Thank you. AI sound box. Sir, actually, our education system that is designed for industrial era. So, what do you think like in AI era, do we still need to follow this education system because in AI…
Look, opinion on education system… My father is a teacher, so I won’t give it to him because my father will beat me up and I will do it from a distance. So, I don’t understand that you haven’t understood it yet. You didn’t study in class. I was a topper, by the way. Class. Just in case. That’s when I was beaten. I think this question of what is a good education system will evolve as an answer in next five years further ahead. We are literally in the beginning of… In other words, you land at the airport right now and ask, do you have Indian food here? Go to the city, stay for two days, then ask where the Indian food is.
So it is a problem to be solved. It will and it will evolve much later. Yes, your question. Oh no, no, the lady in the back, sorry. This is the visual identity goes through that. Are you a doctor? Oh, it looks like.
I have a question. What is the one thing that will never allow AI to perform in payments domain? Specifically in the payments domain.
Oh, easy. You would not want it to have full control of your bank account and make payments. Because if it does some stupid thing, you have allowed it. It’s like saying, we will not give our standing and Ram Rajan. Do you understand? Do what you think is right. We will not do that. So full control should never be given to your bank account. This is the thing.
But if we go a little deeper into technical ways when we are talking about ISO. Or 2022 or maybe RTR. payments, whatever. I really liked that you’re talking about nerds. But because of this technology, the payment didn’t increase. We made it IP guys. So you’re a very old technology person. Actually, sir, I have a job in Canada. You won’t believe, RTR is going to come there. In Canada, they’re going to be front -line and they’re going to be Mr. Stargazer. So I feel very proud there. They say that I’m from India and we use Paytm. So kudos. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. Namaste, sir. So my question is this. What is the minimum…
I’m serious, man. I love you guys. The problem with Gen Z is that you have to think a little. Oh my God. I should ask this guy. This is the risk. Because if he says something like this one day, go home and fight, then you leave this friend. Then he won’t believe the whole thing. Look, before us, Gen Z people used to say, they’re on the computer, they’re on the screen, they don’t go out to play. They don’t go out. They don’t read the newspaper. Go to the beach. Go there. Go out. So we were told this. Now we’ll tell you. What are you doing? You’re taking all the questions like this. Use your brain.
But your t -shirt will be, I don’t use my brain, I use tokens.
Sir, one more question.
I will do a quick question. I will make a question out of four questions and answer it. Okay, okay.
Sir, what is the minimum effective strategy a tier 3, 4 student can follow so that he can do very well in AI? Tier 3, 4 students. Tier 3 or tier 4 students.
Tier 3 or tier 4 students. What does tier mean? Class 3 class? No, no, sir. City? Yes, city, city. Like rural area. Okay, okay. I am also tier 3 from Aligarh. So what they can do so that they can do very good in AI and opportunities. I got it. Basically you are trying to say what to do if you have a student there. What is your question? Go ahead. How do you say it? Farms become cleaner. Air becomes cleaner. Productive becomes dreamer. what will be left for labor market? Oh, this was a very earlier question. I had raised my hand. So, he is saying, when farms become greener, air becomes cleaner, productivity becomes heavier, what will we be doing?
Okay, I got it.
Do you see AI as a leveler in a fintech segment and how will you compete with your peers if they are also adopting AI and AGI?
No problem. I get it. Okay. Any other questions? I’ll answer these things. Go ahead. If you can speak, I will look. Sure. Go ahead.
So, I would like to ask one thing that I would like to fall back on your point that you said that agents will do the talking for us, humans. So, I have seen…
How will I talk? Okay, go ahead. No, no. That’s a different question entirely.
My question is that the agents have started forming their own websites. If you search…
Yeah. So, what is the question that you have?
I have the question that can… How can this economy succeed that can we integrate agents in the human economy that we have currently?
Okay, perfect. Okay. So the inherent question of tier 3 school kid is, which is the problem of every one of us to believe that whether it will be inclusive or not. I have a very simple answer to give. You consider this, like for using the internet, for using the computer, you had to get a QWERTY keyboard and then you had to learn programming. So in AI, just try to get all your work done with AI. And then leverage it as an extension of what your education allows. If you study engineering, if you study art, then you should ask, tell me the comparison between Shakespeare’s English and what was in India going on in that time and how were they writing in Hindi.
Ask the questions and enhance your curiosity as a student. You could be in tier 3, you could be in tier 1 city. But the curiosity and then fulfilment. Filling it using AI will give you the superpower that nobody will have. it so enhance your curiosity because you have access to AI no more questions please yeah and your question was on labor market so the labor market is very simple I don’t think the labor stands for less labor for all of us are also labor and I’m not treating just the physical labor as a labor so the the AI’s ability is that whatever is digital it can perform it superiorly so now imagine is you are you tactically doing exactly what the keyboard typing is or are you also thinking and doing something that you are asking this so you become more productive and the work market becomes even more richer and fulfilling for you so your job will become fulfilling and the businesses will be able to expand the places where the otherwise could have not expanded so subcassad subcassad thank you thank you and please exit from the left Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
“Vijay Shekhar Sharma positioned artificial intelligence not as a threat to employment but as a catalyst for India’s economic ascent, emphasizing job evolution rather than displacement.”
The knowledge base records Sharma emphasizing “Job Evolution Rather Than Displacement,” confirming his framing of AI as a catalyst rather than a threat [S1].
“Sharma praised Sarvam’s recent launch as a remarkable, impressive proof‑of‑concept for Indian AI models.”
Panel excerpts note Sharma describing the Sarvam model launch as a “remarkable announcement” and “really impressive,” corroborating his praise of the model as a proof-of-concept [S69] and [S70].
“India must build its own foundation models in English and Hindi to break out of a services‑only paradigm and embed Indian cultural knowledge.”
The broader discussion of India’s strategic positioning in AI and semiconductors highlights a national push for indigenous AI capabilities, providing context for the call to develop home-grown English and Hindi foundation models [S67].
“AI can detect and remove hidden biases in loan approvals, offering unbiased credit decisions to low‑income users such as auto‑rickshaw drivers.”
Research on AI-enabled credit analytics notes that while AI can help surface bias, it can also exacerbate bias if not carefully managed, adding nuance to the claim that AI will simply “remove” hidden biases [S77].
The discussion shows strong convergence among speakers on four core themes: (1) the strategic imperative for multiple indigenous foundation models; (2) AI’s capacity to remove bias and expand financial inclusion; (3) targeting AI for micro‑merchants and farmers; (4) an agent‑first, inclusive future where AI narrows inequality. These points are reinforced across Vijay’s detailed arguments and audience/Harinder reflections, indicating a high degree of consensus.
High consensus – the participants largely reinforce each other’s visions, suggesting a unified policy direction for India’s AI agenda that prioritises indigenous model development, inclusive deployment, and agent‑centric design.
The discussion reveals moderate disagreement primarily around the scale of investment needed for indigenous AI models, the distributional impact of AI on inequality, and the depth of AI‑driven disruption to legacy institutions such as banks and schools. While participants converge on the overarching goal of building Indian AI capability and using AI for sectoral inclusion, they diverge on how much capital is essential, whether AI will level or polarise society, and how far AI should replace traditional structures.
Medium – the disagreements are substantive but do not fracture the overall consensus on AI’s strategic importance for India. They signal the need for clearer policy guidance on funding models, inclusive design, and the scope of AI integration with existing institutions.
The discussion was driven by a handful of pivotal remarks that repeatedly shifted the focus from abstract AI hype to concrete, India‑centric strategies and societal impacts. Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s opening framing of AI as a growth catalyst set a positive tone, while his insistence on building indigenous foundation models anchored the technical conversation in cultural and bias considerations. Audience inputs about bias removal and financial inclusion introduced tangible use‑cases, prompting deeper exploration of AI’s role in finance, health, and education. The introduction of ‘agent‑first’ interfaces reoriented the dialogue toward future system architecture, and the repeated emphasis on inclusivity—both in terms of socioeconomic equity and educational access—served to counter fears of AI‑driven inequality. Collectively, these comments steered the conversation from speculative concerns to actionable pathways for India’s AI ecosystem, highlighting both opportunities and responsible implementation.
Disclaimer: This is not an official session record. DiploAI generates these resources from audiovisual recordings, and they are presented as-is, including potential errors. Due to logistical challenges, such as discrepancies in audio/video or transcripts, names may be misspelled. We strive for accuracy to the best of our ability.
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