There is now no shortage of all manner of AI models of different capabilities and strengths, but India too has also thrown its hat into the ring.
Krutrim AI, founded by Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal, has launched its public-facing AI model. The model is called Krutrim AI, and is available for anyone to use. This is the first public-facing general AI model released by an Indian company.
“We’ve rooted Krutrim strongly into Indian values and data with over 10+ Indian languages and ready to assist in English, Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, Gujarati and even Hinglish!” said Bhavish Agarwal. “Krutrim marks the dawn of a new era in the AI computing stack for our nation. We will aim to innovate alongside the world and define future paradigms,” he added.
But Aggarwal was careful to add plenty of disclaimers. “This is a start for us and our first generation product. Lots more to come and this will also improve significantly as we build on this base. Do give us your feedback. While some hallucinations will be there but much lower for Indian contexts than other global platforms. And we will be working overtime to find and fix!” he said.
Krutrim is available on chat.olakrutrim.com. The website asks users to log in with their phone number, and they’re then able to use Krutrim’s AI model for free. Krutrim’s UI seems heavily inspired by ChatGPT — it starts off with a disclaimer saying users should check the facts output by the model, and tells them to avoid asking asking it for advice on sensitive matters.
Like ChatGPT, Krutrim AI also gives users suggestions on what they can use the model for — it says its model can be used to create cover letters, learn about the history of the Tata Group, or learn about cultural festivals.
We gave the model a spin. The results seem to be at par with the first version of ChatGPT that was released in late 2022 — the model is able to write poems, provide biographies of famous Indian figures, and give general advice. The model is also able to output results in Indian languages, much like ChatGPT.
Interestingly, Krutrim appears to be pretty closely tied with Agarwal’s other startup, Ola. Krutrim’s website is hosted on a domain named OlaKrutrim. Also, Krutrim AI refuses to answer any questions about Ola or Bhavish Aggarwal — while it provides users with profiles of other companies, it gives a boilerplate response to users when asked about Ola, asking them to visit Ola’s official website instead.
But overall, Krutrim appears to be a significant step forward for India’s AI space. Krutrim had become India’s fastest ever unicorn when it had attained a $1 billion valuation 41 days after being announced. It’s unclear how Krutrim is working in the backend, or what its technical details are, but on the face of it it appears to deliver results that are similar to what ChatGPT’s were until a few quarters ago. It remains to be seen how Krutrim fares in the coming months, but India’s AI push seems to be finally off the blocks.