As India searches for a homegrown contender within the international 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 assembly 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 corresponding to reserving cabs, ordering meals, and making reservations. The service, which may be activated by saying “Hey Jio,” is anticipated to launch later this yr for Jio’s greater than 500 million customers.
By embedding the service immediately into its telecom community quite than providing it as a standalone app, Jio is betting AI help can change into a local characteristic of telephone calls. The method may cut 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 deciding on roaming plans, by way of natural-language requests. The corporate additional launched TeleFrame, a house show that makes use of AI brokers to proactively floor info and suggestions, corresponding 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 corporations 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 discipline largely dominated by U.S. and Chinese language expertise corporations. The push follows the launch of Reliance Intelligence final yr, by way of which the conglomerate goals to develop AI infrastructure and companies for shoppers, companies, and governments, together with purposes that help 22 Indian languages.
“India shouldn’t be a mere client 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 way of partnerships with Google, Meta, and Nvidia. Earlier this yr, the corporate introduced plans to make investments $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 growth for buyers awaiting Jio’s inventory market debut. Ambani mentioned Jio Platforms’ board had permitted a draft prospectus for an preliminary public providing that would come with a contemporary difficulty of as much as 270 million shares, in response to a inventory alternate submitting.
The bulletins additionally increase questions on how Reliance will deal with person knowledge 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 knowledge generated by way of the merchandise may very well be used to coach AI fashions or shared with expertise companions.
Reliance’s AI ambitions come as Indian corporations stay closely reliant on international AI fashions and cloud suppliers. Latest restrictions on entry to a few of Anthropic’s newest fashions have underscored that dependency, exhibiting how selections made abroad can have an effect on startups and companies constructing AI merchandise in India — the type of supply-chain danger that’s pushing Indian conglomerates towards constructing their very own stack quite than renting another person’s.
Final week, Reliance introduced a collaboration with Meta to ascertain an AI knowledge heart within the western state of Gujarat, constructing on Meta’s earlier funding in Jio Platforms and a three way partnership launched final yr to develop AI options for enterprise prospects in India and abroad markets.
Reliance is just not alone in pursuing AI alternatives. Tata Consultancy Providers, Infosys, and rival Adani Group have additionally expanded their AI initiatives and partnerships with international gamers, together with Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI, as India’s largest companies race to safe a number one function within the nation’s AI future.
Nonetheless, for Reliance, the stakes are significantly 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 yr.
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