Why Indian Founders Love AI Agents
The year 2024 witnessed the global adoption of an agentic AI force. From big tech companies to emerging startups, AI agents took centre stage. Keeping the momentum going, 2025 is set to be even bigger in the agentic space. A noticeable trend shows that startups building AI agents are largely being founded by Indian developers. The AI agents market has been witnessing promising growth. From $5.1 billion in 2024, the market is expected to hit $47.1 billion by 2030. In particular, Indian entrepreneurs have been significantly driving the growth. Source: X India and AI Agents “If you look at how LLMs have matured, it’s clear that their potential plateaus once they run out of fresh training data. AI agents pick up the slack by plugging into external sources [such as] databases, APIs, real-time feeds, and letting the model stay relevant as events unfold,” Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, director of AI research at Zoho and ManageEngine, told AIM. “This is why you’re seeing founders worldwide, including those from India, pushing AI agents to the forefront; it’s simply the next logical milestone for the technology after robust LLMs.” Ramamoorthy believes that the effort to integrate AI with new data streams represents an evolution rather than a revolution and is not defined by nationality or geography but by the determination to prevent AI from becoming stagnant. “AI agents give us that infusion of timeliness and context that static LLMs alone can’t deliver.” Bengaluru-based AI startup Kogo AI, founded by Praveer Kochhar and Raj K Gopalakrishnan, is building AI agents and solutions to simplify workflows and improve productivity for businesses. Recently, they also launched an AI agent store. “We are currently building an agent that can look at a database and actually think like a data scientist or a business analyst and generate extremely intelligent questions,” Kochhar said in a recent podcast with AIM. The founders also emphasised the advancements in foundational models, which have made it easier and cheaper to build AI agents. Kochhar explained how building customer support and voice-based AI agents was initially expensive, costing around ₹50 per interaction, which was unsustainable for practical use. However, advancements significantly reduced this cost to approximately ₹2.5 per interaction, making such deployments more feasible. A number of Indian AI agents have been making the mark. A few Indian founders under the Y Combinator cohort are also building AI agents. For example, Floworks, founded by Sudipta Biswas and Sarthak Shrivastava, selected under the Winter 2023 cohort of Y Combinator, is building AI agents that will address sales functions. Prominent AI startups such as Sarvam AI, backed by PeakXV Partners, Khosla Ventures and CoRover, backed by Venture Catalysts, and educational institutions also have AI agents. AI Agents are Everywhere With AI agents quietly becoming the norm, choosing the right sector where these agents will become the most beneficial becomes critical. “Departments such as sales, marketing, and finance usually have well-established software systems like CRM (customer relationship management), ERP (enterprise resource planning), analytics dashboards, etc., so they can plug AI agents directly into these data pipelines,” Ramamoorthy said. Industry leaders who have moved on to start their ventures have also gotten into AI agents. CP Gurnani, co-founder of AlonOS and former CEO of Tech Mahindra, recently spoke about how AI agents can make people more productive and efficient. “Agentic AI is the software version of a personal robot. Each one of us will have an AI agent that knows us really well,” he wrote on social media. AlonOS, co-founded by Gurnani and Rahul Bhatia, provides organisations with AI-as-a-service and data engineering solutions. The Singapore-headquartered AI startup recently partnered with Indosat, Indonesia’s telecom company, to accelerate AI sovereignty in their country. Though not many details have been revealed, AI agents will probably be implemented, considering that they are first catering to the travel and hospitality sector. Gaurav Aggarwal, who has industry experience working with NVIDIA and autonomous mobility, is now the founder and CEO of RagaAI – an AI testing platform. They recently released test frameworks for testing AI agents too. “We’re seeing AI agents evolve into so much more than just tools. They’re becoming collaborators, problem-solvers, and decision-makers,” Aggarwal said recently. Notably, leading database company Redis is supporting AI startups such as Kore AI in powering their virtual AI agents. “The Indian tech ecosystem is going to play a very critical role in agentic AI,” Manvinder Singh, VP of AI product management at Redis, told AIM.
The AI agent market is expected to hit $47.1 billion by 2030.
The AI agent market is expected to hit $47.1 billion by 2030.
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["AI", "analytics", "agentic AI", "Aim", "RAG", "Redis", "R", "Go", "API", "data engineering"]
As a rare blend of engineering, MBA, and journalism degree, Vandana Nair brings a unique combination of technical know-how, business acumen, and storytelling skills to the table. Her insatiable curiosity for all things startups, businesses, and AI technologies ensures that there's always a fresh and insightful perspective to her reporting. She now hosts her tech segment 'Point Break' on AIM Tv.