AI services the rage at B'luru Tech Summit

NT Bengaluru

As the 27th Bengaluru Tech Summit (BTS) got off in the IT City on Tuesday, one could not help noticing the fact that Artificial Intelligence (AI) services featured prominently at most stalls. AI was also discussed heavily in the talks held at BTS at the Bangalore Palace premises when the three-day event was inaugurated. AI is defined as the ability of computers to perform tasks generally associated with human intelligence. Examples include the ability to reason and learn from past experiences. Much of the emphasis was about AI’s potential to tackle labour-intensive and expensive tasks and turn them into quick and cheap affairs. Way2Smile (W2S), which comes under the parent company W2X, provides data-driven insights to customers. The company has an in-house AI tool namely “meii.ai” which helps dispense key information.

Govt institutions turn clients; W2S business development manager Athira said their customers included Government of India (GOI) institutions such as the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT). “We help the NIOT note parameters such as water salinity and underwater pressure. It helps them predict future climatic events. We also deploy ‘tsunami buoys’, which are manufactured by a vendor but are purchased by NIOT,” she said, adding that they also used satellite imagery provided by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) sometimes. Athira added the company was in the Proof of Concept (POC) stage in their discussions with the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI). The plan is to use images obtained from third parties to identify species of marine animals, especially endangered ones to aid in conservation attempts. “The demand came from taxonomists,” she said. Taxonomy is the branch of science dealing with classification of organisms.

Tracking employees: TrackALL is a company that takes stock of the productivity and presence of employees in the office and on the field as well and uses AI for the same. It also uses Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras. When questioned about the potential for surveillance by private parties, TrackALL founder Gnyaneshwar Vandakar downplayed the same. “We have the TrackAll app that allows employees to share key tasks and daily accomplishments with their supervisors,” he said.

GeekyAnts is a product development studio in existence for 12 years and they help develop apps. Company Chief Marketing Officer Aswathy Anil insisted they were deliverers of solutions, adding that AI help bridge the solution gap. “We use voice assistant chat bots. AI also helps us reduce redundancies and automation eliminates the need for manual processes,” she said, adding they provided services to fortune 500 companies. Other firms such as Chadha and Chadha help people secure Intellectual Property (IP) and protect their data privacy.

Company senior associate and head of trademarks and data privacy Ankita Sabharwal said firms were in the process of securing their IP as generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT tend to draw their results on already existing material on the internet. “We are in the process of learning AI and up-skilling as it is required in the process of protecting IPs and data,” she said.