India’s role in AI research; Meet Freshworks’ Freddy AI

Hello,

It’s the festive season and delivery apps are buzzing with activity.

Food delivery platforms Zomato and Swiggy hiked their platform fee to Rs 10 on Wednesday, as the companies look to capitalise on the festive rush.

Speaking of Zomato, the company’s share price rose by around 3%, a day after it announced its second-quarter results, as the markets were encouraged by the stability in the food delivery business and hyper-growth prospects of quick commerce.

While Blinkit, owned by Zomato, has launched a Blinkit Sellers Hub platform, to give ecommerce platforms tough competition across categories, IPO-bound Swiggy has rolled out its latest “Swiggy Seal” initiative, a label awarded to restaurants for maintaining hygiene, food quality and packaging standards. 

It’s not just ecommerce that’s feeling the festive spirit.

MakeMyTrip has reported a 9X jump in its second-quarter profit to $17.9 million led by a sharp rise in its air ticketing and hotels and packages business. The travel service provider's gross bookings jumped 24.3% to $2.26 billion in Q2 FY25, while revenue rose to $211 million from $168.7 million compared to a year ago.

The increase was attributed to the rise in the number of passengers flying abroad and going on more domestic trips.

Lastly, Anthropic now allows users to hand over the control of their computers to an AI model.

The Amazon-backed OpenAI competitor released a new version of its Claude 3.5 Sonnet model, which can input keystrokes and mouse clicks that allow it to use potentially any applications users have installed.

That doesn’t sound like good news!

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• India’s role in AI research
• Meet Freshworks’ Freddy AI
• How AI will boost inclusion

Here’s your trivia for today: What is the name of Salvador Dalì's most famous painting of clocks?

Technology

India’s role in AI research

India will have an important role to play in the future of AI research and development, Meta’s Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun said at Meta’s Build with AI Summit. The AI pioneer said India’s potential lies not only in technology and product innovation for local markets but also on an international scale.   

“There is a lot of talent in India. We see a lot of people from India making technical and scientific contributions to AI. India, going forward, has an important role to play, not just in technology development and product development, not just for local products or international products, but also for research,” LeCun said. 

Opportunities:

• He highlighted the critical importance of open-source platforms in the evolution of AI, where open-source frameworks have allowed developers worldwide to access and improve their AI systems, opening doors to several collaborations. 
• India is projected to become the largest market for Meta AI, which currently has over 500 million monthly active users globally. By 2024-end, it is expected to become the most widely used AI assistant worldwide.
• “AI is not going to dominate us or take over, but it's going to amplify human intelligence,” LeCun said.

<Funding Alert>

Startup: Even Healthcare

Amount: $30M

Round: Series A

Startup: Zouk

Amount: $10M

Round: Series B

Startup: WishNew Wellness

Amount: $250,000

Round: Angel

Technology

Meet Freshworks’ Freddy AI

SaaS giant Freshworks launched Freddy AI Agent, an easy-to-deploy autonomous service agent designed to enhance both customer experience and employee experience. The AI agent can be deployed within minutes and has resolved an average of 40% of customer support requests and 45% of IT service inquiries. 

“Fundamentally, customer service is all about creating delightful experiences for customers, such as engaging with them really well and making sure that their problems get resolved correctly as well as quickly,” Ramesh Parthasarathy, SVP of Technology, Freshworks told YourStory. 

Joining bandwagon:

• Several mid-sized companies, including Bchex, Porsche eBike, Hobbycraft, and Live Oak Bank, have already integrated Freddy AI Agent with Freshdesk and Freshservice.
• Organisations can deploy Freddy AI Agent without the need for coding or model training by simply directing it to existing materials or websites, allowing the agent to crawl and learn on its own. 
• It operates fully autonomously and is always active, providing human-like, multi-channel support, along with hyper-personalised and multilingual interaction. 

Technology

How AI will boost inclusion

Artificial intelligence can further amplify India's Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and accelerate inclusion across the nation, said Nandan Nilekani, non-executive chairman, Infosys, at the Build with AI Summit organised by Meta in Bengaluru.

“People have said, with AI coming in, what does it mean for DPI? We think it's not just DPI+AI. It's DPI to the power of AI. We believe that AI will amplify everything that we have done so far, and these tools that we're getting are actually going to accelerate many things, such as inclusion,” he said.

Key takeaways:

• Nilekani, the brains behind the establishment of DPI, elaborated on India's unique position, stating that India’s digital infrastructure is providing the foundation to accelerate the adoption of AI.
• He also illustrated the impact of AI on inclusion with practical use cases across agriculture and education. 
• “Printing press democratised reading. It led to so many changes in religion, and democracy.. But in India, we still have millions of kids who can't read. Now, if we can use AI to improve the reading skills of every child, then they will also join the reading economy. We are on the verge of that,” he added.

News & updates

• Breakup: A Boeing satellite belonging to multinational service provider Intelsat mysteriously blew into pieces in geostationary orbit over the weekend. According to an official update, an "anomaly" caused the satellite — dubbed IS-33e — to be destroyed, resulting in what the company calls a "total loss."
• Upswing: Coca-Cola Co. said Wednesday its third-quarter revenue fell as sales volumes flattened or declined around the world. But the company still beat Wall Street’s forecasts and said it expects full-year organic revenue to rise 10%, which is at the high end of its previous guidance.

What is the name of Salvador Dalì's most famous painting of clocks?

Answer: The Persistence of Memory.

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