“The consumer in emerging markets should expect vast, radical change in everyday life soon because of AI”

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As AI crunches time for many projects, we have to realize that it has the capability to do much for the emerging market consumer, who still struggles for basic efficiency in technology.

In April Deloitte India tied up with Yotta Data Services to provide clients access to NVIDIA GPU computing infrastructure and accelerate the development of new AI applications. The collaboration is expected bring world-class AI capabilities to Indian organizations, where AI’s contribution to India’s GDP is projected to be US$500 billion by 2025 (10% of the country’s US$5 trillion GDP target) and ~US$1 trillion by 2035 (per INDIAai projections). The tie up is also in sync with India’s AI mandate, under which the government recently approved a major investment to drive AI innovation in the country.

Nitin Mittal, Deloitte’s Global Generative AI Leader, said, “As GenAI gains momentum, it opens doors for businesses to reinvent how work is done and unlock fresh avenues of creativity.”

As GenAI gains momentum, it opens doors for businesses to reinvent how work is done and unlock fresh avenues of creativity
Nitin Mittal, Deloitte’s Global Generative AI Leader

Among other AI announcements from Deloitte, the company launched Quartz AI, a suite of industry-specific AI service offerings built on NVIDIA platforms, and several thought-leading research and publications from Deloitte AI Institute,^TM including the recent “State of Generative AI in the Enterprise” report.

Indian businesses are zeroing on AI. Indian Oil is using Qlik AI for visualization and insights, to track KPIs and monitor operations across the organization. Sukla Mistry, Director (Refineries) at Indian Oil, said, “Our next step is to go deeper into AI/ML models and work more with refinery operations on process optimization, pricing mechanisms, project monitoring, and CRM.”

Michael Puscar, an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and a published data scientist, and the CTO of NPCx, told The Tech Panda that the consumer in emerging markets should expect vast, radical change in their everyday life soon because of AI.

AI is not the future, it is the now” and unfortunately, even now, I hear people speak about AI as if it’s something that will happen in 5 or 10 years. It’s important to understand that it has already changed our lives
Michael Puscar, an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and a published data scientist, and the CTO of NPCx

“In 2020, I lectured on the topic of “AI is not the future, it is the now” and unfortunately, even now, I hear people speak about AI as if it’s something that will happen in 5 or 10 years. It’s important to understand that it has already changed our lives – from the GPS that we use to navigate to work to Spotify recommendations for music to our online shopping experiences.

“But in emerging markets, that change will become even more profound. There are so many examples. We had AI technology 20 years ago but the lack of computing power and lack of training data made it cost prohibitive. This technology is now accessible to everyone, and that is creating a worldwide revolution,” he says.

AI & Healthcare

AI innovations have been helping healthcare in many ways. Recently, Google launched a new medical chatbot named AMIE, which focuses on expert-level differential diagnosis. In May, Google DeepMind introduced AlphaFold 3, an innovative AI model that can predict the structure and interactions of all life’s molecules with astonishing precision. AI is even helping CRISPR by generating blueprints for microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit DNA, helping scientists fight illness and diseases with even higher accuracy and lesser time.

In prosthetics, Atom Limbs utilizes advanced sensors and machine learning to interpret electrical signals from an individual’s brain to use them in moving and manipulating a prosthetic limb.

But Puscar says that AI can help with basic human problems like healthcare before going into complex things.

It is deeply disappointing to me that universal access to quality healthcare is still lacking worldwide in 2023. But advances in healthcare through AI will soon change that

“It is deeply disappointing to me that universal access to quality healthcare is still lacking worldwide in 2023. But advances in healthcare through AI will soon change that,” he says with optimism.

A 2019 project demonstrated that an expert AI system could outperform clinicians to predict sepsis onset. Puscar participated in the project.

“It could detect septic shock an hour before it occurs using AI and pattern recognition.

Thus, AI technology will raise living standards by detecting disease states before they occur,” he adds.

AI & Agtech

Industries like agtech can also leverage AI. Last year, Arya.ag, an Indian grain commerce platform, tied up with Bioseed, to up the game in farm surveillance and data-driven decision-making with Arya.ag’s satellite surveillance product, Prakshep, combined with the power of AI ‘VaMa’.

Cropin Technology, a global Agtech company launched ‘aksara’, the sector’s first purpose-built open-source (Apache 2.0 License and with no restrictions) Micro Language Model (µ-LM) for climate smart agriculture, built on Mistral’s foundation model. It is designed to address the problems faced by the underserved farming communities in the Global South by removing barriers to knowledge and empowering anyone in the agriculture ecosystem to build frugal and scalable AI solutions for the sector.

AI can inform farmers about the best times to plant and harvest, provide early warnings about pests or diseases, and optimize resource use to increase yield and reduce waste. It can help those in emerging markets to commercialize their products beyond selling locally to a worldwide audience

“AI can inform farmers about the best times to plant and harvest, provide early warnings about pests or diseases, and optimize resource use to increase yield and reduce waste. It can help those in emerging markets to commercialize their products beyond selling locally to a worldwide audience,” Puscar says.

AI & Edtech

Education is another industry just waiting to be revolutionized. In emerging markets like India, AI is about to open up careers for today’s youth in great numbers and ways. In a survey by Thomson Reuters 67% of working professionals surveyed believe AI impact their profession in the next five years, while more than half expect the technology to create new career paths.

“There’s a significant body of research that shows the correlation between education level and both standard of living and income level. In fact, in emerging markets, high tech jobs are an important vehicle to eliminating generational poverty, as they not only help the individual but that individual’s family as well,” says Puscar.

AI is the first technology since the advent of the Internet that can truly establish equity in education. Poverty of course translates to less opportunities in education. But while the Internet brought vast knowledge to those who wouldn’t have otherwise been able to buy an encyclopedia or find a textbook, companies are using AI to improve the quality of education, personalizing it to the individual. Soon, one-size-fits-all 300 student lecture halls will be replaced with individualized learning, providing opportunities never seen before

“AI is the first technology since the advent of the Internet that can truly establish equity in education. Poverty of course translates to less opportunities in education. But while the Internet brought vast knowledge to those who wouldn’t have otherwise been able to buy an encyclopedia or find a textbook, companies are using AI to improve the quality of education, personalizing it to the individual. Soon, one-size-fits-all 300 student lecture halls will be replaced with individualized learning, providing opportunities never seen before,” he adds.

Emerging markets can use AI to better the condition of the common user, whether it is healthcare, education, agriculture, and much more. AI can be that enabler that wipes out the gaps between developed, developing and emerging countries.

Navanwita Bora Sachdev

Navanwita is the editor of The Tech Panda who also frequently publishes stories in news outlets such as The Indian Express, Entrepreneur India, and The Business Standard