In 2022, Nando de Freitas, a researcher at Google DeepMind, declared on X, “It’s all about scale now! The game is over!” But was it?
Fast forward to 2025, the AI landscape has shifted dramatically. Almost three years after OpenAI’s ChatGPT brought in the Generative AI (GenAI) frenzy in 2022, a new young and ambitious company, DeepSeek, has now defied expectations by launching an open, smaller, and more efficient model at a significantly low cost that outperforms the heavily funded giants like OpenAI and Google Gemini.
This is the essence of GenAI: constant reinvention and relentless innovation. What was groundbreaking yesterday is obsolete today. But what’s happening in India, particularly?
After much back and forth, the country has realised that the strategy of letting the West develop the base while India makes solutions on top of them won’t work any longer. Now, the government is investing in acquiring world-class GPUs, inviting bids for India’s Sovereign AI models, and prioritising a stronger AI policy.
Meanwhile, the private sector is witnessing an increasing number of VC investments in vertical GenAI solutions, as the buzz is steadily shifting from chatbots to AI agents. Different perspectives, but that’s the spirit of GenAI—nobody is right or wrong in their approach.
To capture this fast-evolving spirit and spark meaningful conversations, Inc42 is proud to present the second edition of The GenAI Summit 2025, taking place on April 9 in Bengaluru.
Bringing together 350+ exclusive invite-only attendees – founders, policymakers, business leaders, and investors – the summit will decode the transformative potential of GenAI in India’s startup economy.
Inc42 has been at the forefront since the early days of GenAI, tracking its evolution and impact. Over the years, we’ve witnessed AI startups navigate the journey from nascent ideas to industry-defining breakthroughs. Now, it’s time to discuss what’s next.
The GenAI Summit 2025: What’s On Plate
The Indian startup ecosystem is embracing the next phase of AI transformation, as GenAI continues to disrupt industries and redefine business strategies. The conversations around AI dominance, regulations, and its impact on jobs are only intensifying, making it imperative for tech leaders, investors, and policymakers to collaborate and navigate this evolving landscape.
While early adopters have leveraged GenAI to automate workflows, enhance efficiency, and optimise decision-making, 2025 is poised to bring even more significant shifts.
We know that GenAI will continue to redefine how consumers interact with brands and services, disrupt traditional software development and distribution, and reshape entire industries.
The dilemma for startups and enterprises alike is no longer whether to integrate AI, though the challenge remains in how to do so effectively while staying competitive.
Meanwhile, as we predicted in the fall of 2024, this year is already becoming the year of agentic AI. Most of the Indian IT giants have either committed to or launched AI agents as offerings to their clients.
Notably, the GenAI Summit 2025 is India’s premier AI-focussed conference, bringing together the most influential AI leaders, startup founders, investors, and enterprise decision-makers to debate, discuss, and showcase the future of AI-driven businesses.
Founders, CTOs, investors, and AI pioneers will take the stage to explore trends in GenAI, practical applications of AI models, and India’s place in the global AI revolution.
Inc42 will host a series of interactive sessions, including keynotes, fireside chats, and panel discussions featuring leaders such as CoRover founder & CEO Ankush Sabharwal, Observe.AI CTO and cofounder Jithendra Vepa, Simpl CEO Nitya Sharma, Avataar founder Sravanth Aluru, MakeMyTrip’s Sanjay Mohan, and many more.
Spotlight On Sessions At GenAI Summit 2025
With a stellar lineup of speakers, the summit promises in-depth discussions on some of the most pressing topics in AI today. Here are some of the most anticipated sessions:
Riding The Conversational AI Wave: What’s Next?
Conversational AI has evolved from chatbots to intelligent voice assistants and beyond. In May 2024, when OpenAI launched ChatGPT 4o, it started a wave of AI agents to fully automate business conversations with users.
From conversational AI platforms like Gupshup to the listed B2B traveltech platform, TBO Tek, several companies have either started building and offering such services or have themselves integrated conversational AI on their platforms to serve their customers better. Besides, speech-to-speech models are becoming more popular. Voice bots developed by Indian startup CoRover are changing user experience across government platforms like IRCTC and NPCI.
To explore and initiate more conversation around the evolution from chatbots to voice assistants, and, now, to conversational agents, how conversational AI is reshaping customer expectations, the use cases and challenges yet to be solved, and the role of AR/VR in shaping the future of conversational AI, and more, the GenAI Summit has brought together a panel featuring Ankush Sabharwal (founder and CEO, CoRover.ai), Garima Pant (head of AI at TBO Tek), Deepak Gupta (VP, engineering at CARS24), and Goda Ramkumar (VP, data science at Swiggy. The session will be moderated by Nitin Jain, cofounder and chief business officer at OfBusiness.
Agentic AI: The Rise Of AI Decision-Makers
Moving beyond simple automation, AI is now making complex business decisions. AI agents are now the talk of the town. From building websites to ordering groceries on your behalf, AI agents are now capable of doing everything with the least human intervention.
Indian IT giants like Infosys have already built more than 100 AI agents, along with companies like HCL, TCS and Wipro announcing their own plans for AI agents. Meanwhile, startups like Pulse, Atomicwork, and Quash have raised millions of dollars in funding in recent months to go big on Agentic AI.
To discuss the developments in this new area of AI, the implications, governance risks, and the balance between AI autonomy and human oversight, the panel will feature Jithendra Vepa, CTO and cofounder of Observe.AI; Vijay Rayapati, cofounder and CEO of Atomicwork; and Karan Mehta, founder of Rezolv along with founder and managing partner of Ideaspring Capital, Naganand Doraswamy, as the moderator.
Fintech’s AI Gamble: Disruptive Force Or Risky Bet?
Financial services and the overall BFSI sector have been the largest and initial adopters of GenAI in India. Banks, NBFCs, and lending and insurance players are using the technology for use cases including hyper-personalised banking experience, AI-driven credit scoring, risk management, and underwriting loans.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is also mulling models for ‘predictive’ analysis of the markets, particularly the use of AI and machine learning.
In this panel, experts will discuss whether AI is a game-changer or a regulatory minefield for fintech firms, the dilemma of developing AI in-house or leveraging third-party AI solutions, cost reduction and customer retention, and whether AI-native startups will outpace traditional players.
Simpl’s cofounder and CEO Nitya Sharma, OnFinance AI’s cofounder and CEO Anuj Srivastava, and Razorpay’s chief product officer Khilan Haria are among the panelists.
Tech Giants Vs. Startups: A Lopsided AI Race?
As AI infrastructure costs soar, can startups compete with tech giants? At one end are companies with billions of dollars to invest, having their own data centres and a wide pool of researchers.
On the other end are startups—cash-crunched, but motivated, talented, and aiming to catalyse GenAI adoption in India. But can many startups replicate the success of the big techs?
This session will examine whether open-source AI solutions can level the playing field and what monetisation strategies make sense for AI startups, the challenge of AI infrastructure costs, hurdles in access to data, and investor appetite for AI-first startups. Moderated by Hari Balaji, partner, technology consulting at EY India, the speakers for the session include Arjun Rao, general partner at Speciale Invest, Ganesh Gopalan, cofounder and CEO of Gnani.ai, Ankit Prasad, founder and CEO of Bobble AI, and Shivam Mangla, cofounder of Rephrase.ai.
How GenAI Is Reshaping Retail Brands: From Prototyping To Pricing
Retailers are leveraging AI for product design, pricing optimisation, and marketing automation. However, what can be the exact impact of GenAI on retail brands?
This discussion will cover AI’s impact on personalisation, consumer trust, the retail sector’s future beyond 2025, content creation, ads, and more pertinent topics like data privacy.
We have brought together Sravanth Aluru (founder and CEO of Avataar), Sreeraman Mohan Girija (cofounder of Fynd), and Vaibhav Khandelwal (cofounder and CTO of Shadowfax). Archana Jahagirdar, founder and managing partner of Rukam Capital, will moderate the session.
Join The GenAI Revolution
The GenAI Summit 2025 will be a defining moment for India’s AI ecosystem, featuring exclusive insights from industry pioneers, networking opportunities with investors and entrepreneurs, and showcases of cutting-edge AI technologies.
The Summit will also feature several other sessions, including The Indic LLM Question: Inside Sarvam’s Journey, Rewiring Business Stacks With GenAI, Building The Bharat Model Of AI, Leveraging AI To Empower MSMEs In A Digital-First Economy, AI In Healthtech, and The SaaS-AI Fusion: Reinventing Enterprise Software.
Stay ahead of the AI curve and be part of the conversation shaping the future of GenAI in India. Get your access now!