Is it practical to offer a text-only AI chatbot when your target market comprises 22 official languages and over 19,000 dialects spoken by its people?
That’s the challenge that Indian AI startup Sarvam is addressing. Recently, they launched a range of offerings, including a voice-enabled AI bot that supports more than 10 Indian languages. The focus is on providing a more personalized experience by allowing people to interact with AI models in their preferred language rather than through text messages.
Vivek Raghavan, co-founder of Sarvam AI, emphasized the preference for speaking in one’s own language rather than typing, highlighting the challenges of typing in Indian languages.
Catering primarily to businesses and enterprises, the Bengaluru-based startup is promoting its AI voice-enabled bots for various industries, especially those in need of customer support. For example, Sri Mandir, a startup offering religious content, has successfully utilized Sarvam’s AI agent for payment acceptance, processing over 270,000 transactions to date.
Sarvam’s AI voice agents are versatile, capable of deployment on platforms like WhatsApp, mobile apps, and even traditional voice calls.
With backing from Peak XV and Lightspeed, Sarvam plans to price its AI agents starting at ₹1 per minute of usage.
Sarvam is developing its voice-enabled AI agents based on a foundational language model, Sarvam 2B, trained on 4 trillion tokens of synthetic data. Raghavan clarified that the startup has enhanced the accuracy of this data to tackle the limitations of using synthetic data.
Despite the potential drawbacks of synthetic data, Sarvam believes in the value of smaller language models like Sarvam 2B, offering enhanced specificity, cost-effectiveness, and reduced latency. The startup has opted to open-source this model to encourage community collaboration.
In addition to the language model, Sarvam is introducing a Shuka audio-language model, open-sourcing it for developers to leverage for voice interfaces. Another product, A1, targets lawyers with generative AI capabilities for legal tasks.
Aligned with India’s focus on developing indigenous AI infrastructure, Sarvam aims to contribute to the IndiaAI program, emphasizing national sovereignty in AI development.
As governments globally pursue sovereign AI infrastructures, India is actively involved through programs like IndiaAI Compute Capacity, aiming for inclusive access to digital services across various Indian languages.
Raghavan expressed readiness for Sarvam to collaborate with the government under the IndiaAI program, showcasing the startup’s commitment to advancing AI technologies that resonate with India’s cultural context and national interests.
