Should India build the next AI-native bellwether, or copy models invented abroad

There's a fork in the road for India right now—either take the high-risk/ high-return route to build the next AI-native McKinsey, Accenture, WPP, PricewaterhouseCoopers, or Infosys; or copy the models

Last Updated: May 29, 2025, 11:46 IST2 min
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The AI revolution offers huge opportunities for Indian startups, but with one big difference: The time to reach scale has shrunk dramatically.
Illustration: Chaitanya Dinesh Surpur
The AI revolution offers huge opportunities for Indian startups, but with one big difference: The time to reach scale has shrunk dramatically. Illustration: Chaitanya Dinesh Surpur
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In entertainment, Pocket FM is using AI to create and adapt stories across languages and cultures, testing different versions with diverse audiences, and growing the best-performing content across formats from audio to comics and novels.

The business software world is transforming with AI solutions. Traditionally, many industry-specific software categories had just one or two dominant players—Veeva in lifesciences, Epic in health care, Procore in construction, and ServiceTitan in home services. Now AI is breaking these markets into many specialised subcategories that have manual processes and messy data, and enabling AI startups to expand market potential dramatically.

Also exciting is how AI is breaking down traditional industry boundaries. Companies can start with one specific service before expanding to related areas. Bridgetown Research shows this approach, starting with due diligence services for private equity funds, but aiming to build a wide range of consulting services like McKinsey or Bain—something nearly impossible before AI.

The $1.5 trillion IT services market, $300 billion BPO industry, trillion-dollar consulting sector, $3 trillion entertainment and media industry and many other global sectors are all being reimagined through AI. For Indian entrepreneurs coming out of the funding winter, the chance to build category-defining global market leaders has never been better.

Will Indian founders copy AI business models from elsewhere and be also-rans? Or will India take this high-risk/high-return path to produce world-class AI companies to shape the AI era—both globally and within Bharat itself? A fork in the road lies ahead.

First Published: May 29, 2025, 11:46

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