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At YourStory’s flagship D2C event, Brands of India 2024, Raghav Govindan, Customer Engineer II, Google Cloud, shared groundbreaking insights into the transformative potential of AI for startups and emerging cloud trends, with a focus on how early-stage companies can optimise costs, migrate to the cloud, and enhance customer experiences.

Brands of India 2024 held in May in Bengaluru brought together a mix of visionary entrepreneurs, industry experts and passionate brand enthusiasts who converged to share insights and ignite inspiration and innovation.

Here are some highlights from his keynote:

AI: No longer science fiction

Raghav began by dispelling the notion that AI is a futuristic concept. He emphasised that AI is already a part of our daily lives, integrated into various services like speech-to-text, OCR technologies, and dialogue flow. The shift from traditional predictive AI to Generative AI (GenAI) marks a significant paradigm change, enabling businesses to leverage pre-built models and apply their contextual data for enhanced outcomes.

The Google AI advantage

Highlighting Google’s extensive history in AI research and innovation, Raghav pointed out that Google’s mission has always been to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible. This mission is reflected in the AI-powered features of Google’s popular apps used by billions worldwide. He introduced Google’s latest innovation, the Gemini models, which boast advanced capabilities and a high benchmark in multimodal language understanding.

AI models and TPUs

Raghav explained the advantages of Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), specifically designed for AI applications. He detailed how Google’s infrastructure, including TPUs and partnerships with NVIDIA, provides the robust support needed for deploying AI models at scale.

Tailored solutions for different users

Raghav categorised AI users into three personas: business users, developers, and data scientists. Google Cloud offers specific tools and platforms for each group:

Business users: Predefined APIs for contact centers, health domains, retail search, and document management, allowing easy integration with applications.

Developers: Tools like BigQuery ML for building models using a SQL-like language.

Data scientists: Comprehensive platforms like Vertex AI for developing, training, monitoring, and scaling AI models.

Vertex AI and Model Garden

Vertex AI’s Model Garden was showcased as a central repository offering over 130 foundation models from Google and third parties. This platform simplifies the deployment of models, whether for image generation, chat summarisation, or other D2C applications.

Raghav emphasised the ease of using these models to create and manage AI applications, highlighting their relevance for product and content generation in the D2C space.

Customer success stories

He shared success stories of GenAI adoption, noting that 90% of GenAI unicorns are already leveraging Google Cloud. In India, companies like Flipkart, InMobi, and Glance are using Google’s foundation models to innovate and scale operations.

Conclusion

Raghav’s keynote at Brands of India 2024 underscored the transformative potential of AI for startups. By leveraging Google Cloud’s robust infrastructure, innovative AI models, and tailored solutions, businesses can optimise operations, enhance customer experiences, and stay ahead in the competitive landscape. The session highlighted the importance of embracing AI not just as a tool, but as a strategic partner in business growth and innovation.

For a deeper dive into Raghav Govindan’s insights and to view the full session,