Mumbai: India has the opportunity to leapfrog into areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and generative AI, cloud-based software provider Salesforce India’s Chairperson and CEO Arundhati Bhattacharya said Tuesday.
She also sought to assuage general concerns around AI leading to mass job losses but added that the nature of jobs may change, requiring upskilling and reskilling of talent pools.
“So, India does have the opportunity to leapfrog into AI and generative AI. Now, how far and how long it will take, it’s anybody’s guess… Generative AI is something that’s maturing… It’s not something that’s completely mature…” she said at a media briefing.
The macro-environment in India is “very supportive”, Bhattacharya said underlining India’s advantage of a large talent pool as also the digital public infrastructure.
“The India stack… Aadhaar, UPI and healthcare platforms… Are not something available in most countries. The Indian public goods space is a huge enabler and most of the other countries don’t have this, so we have a big advantage,” she said.
Salesforce, a leading player in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Tuesday, announced the launch of Salesforce ‘Starter’ for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) businesses in India.
Starter is an easy-to-use CRM that includes sales, service and e-mail outreach tools in one suite, helping companies get started so that they have the tools to improve customer experiences, reduce costs, and drive revenue.
“Salesforce Starter combines the usability, flexibility, and security that companies need to scale their business faster and enable companies to improve ROI, and it’s all in a single suite with helpful guides for customers to set up and go live”, the company said.
Starter will also help businesses by offering simplified signup, guided onboarding, and a new checkout flow that makes it easier to bring more users into Salesforce, it added.
IT is evolving fast and companies not keeping pace with it, will be left behind, she said adding that Salesforce is a partner in the digital transformation of its clients.
With various “enablers” in place in the country, Bhattacharya exuded confidence that industry and enterprises will rise to the challenge and leverage digital fully to gain an edge.
India, she observed, is on the cusp of going through a digital transformation.
Asked about the issues of AI bias, Bhattacharya said the issue of AI bias and data privacy are real issues and will have to get addressed over a period of time.
She emphasised cloud adoption will be important for the uptake of AI and generative AI.
PTI
