As India searches for a homegrown contender within the world synthetic intelligence race, billionaire Mukesh Ambani is positioning Reliance Industries as a nationwide champion, rolling out AI companies for telephone calls, cellular apps, and related properties.
At its annual shareholder meeting on Friday, the Mumbai-based conglomerate introduced Jio Name Agent, an AI assistant that may be a part of telephone calls to transcribe conversations, generate summaries, and carry out duties comparable to reserving cabs, ordering meals, and making reservations. The service, which will be activated by saying “Hey Jio,” is predicted to launch later this 12 months for Jio’s greater than 500 million customers.
By embedding the service straight into its telecom community fairly than providing it as a standalone app, Jio is betting AI help can change into a local characteristic of telephone calls. The method may scale back shoppers’ reliance on third-party call-assistant apps and provides Reliance a robust distribution benefit in an more and more crowded AI market.
Reliance additionally unveiled an AI-powered model of its MyJio app that may carry out duties on behalf of customers, from activating eSIMs to choosing roaming plans, by natural-language requests. The corporate additional launched TeleFrame, a house show that makes use of AI brokers to proactively floor info and proposals, comparable to climate alerts, schedules, and family reminders. The product seems to echo a broader business push towards ambient AI assistants for the house, an space being explored by firms together with Amazon and Google.
The bulletins mark the following part of Reliance’s AI ambitions as India seeks to construct home capabilities in a subject largely dominated by U.S. and Chinese language know-how firms. The push follows the launch of Reliance Intelligence final 12 months, by which the conglomerate goals to develop AI infrastructure and companies for shoppers, companies, and governments, together with functions that assist 22 Indian languages.
“India shouldn’t be a mere shopper of AI created elsewhere. It should change into a creator, adopter, and a world chief in AI,” Ambani, 69, mentioned.
Reliance has been ramping up its AI ambitions by partnerships with Google, Meta, and Nvidia. Earlier this 12 months, the corporate introduced plans to invest $110 billion in AI infrastructure because it seeks to ascertain itself as a serious participant in India’s rising AI ecosystem.
On the shareholder assembly, Reliance additionally unveiled a set of AI companies for healthcare, training, agriculture, and small companies. The merchandise, branded JioHealthIQ, JioLearnIQ, JioKrishiIQ, and AI Vyapar, are designed to function throughout a number of Indian languages and cater to native wants, the corporate mentioned.
The shareholder assembly additionally introduced a serious improvement for buyers awaiting Jio’s stock market debut. Ambani mentioned Jio Platforms’ board had authorised a draft prospectus for an preliminary public providing that would come with a recent difficulty of as much as 270 million shares, based on a inventory alternate submitting.
The bulletins additionally increase questions on how Reliance will deal with person information because it expands AI companies throughout telephone calls, cellular apps, and related properties. Whereas the corporate mentioned the companies would function with person consent, it didn’t reply questions on whether or not information generated by the merchandise could possibly be used to coach AI fashions or shared with know-how companions.
Reliance’s AI ambitions come as Indian firms stay closely reliant on overseas AI fashions and cloud suppliers. Recent restrictions on access to a few of Anthropic’s newest fashions have underscored that dependency, displaying how selections made abroad can have an effect on startups and businesses constructing AI merchandise in India — the type of supply-chain threat that’s pushing Indian conglomerates towards constructing their very own stack fairly than renting another person’s.
Final week, Reliance introduced a collaboration with Meta to establish an AI data center within the western state of Gujarat, constructing on Meta’s earlier funding in Jio Platforms and a three way partnership launched final 12 months to develop AI options for enterprise clients in India and abroad markets.
Reliance isn’t alone in pursuing AI alternatives. Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and rival Adani Group have additionally expanded their AI initiatives and partnerships with world gamers, together with Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI, as India’s largest firms race to safe a number one function within the nation’s AI future.
Nonetheless, for Reliance, the stakes are notably excessive; it’s making ready Jio for a long-awaited inventory market debut and desires new progress drivers, with the conglomerate’s shares down about 17% this 12 months.
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