“Indians are ready to witness and harness the power of AI”

In conversation with Vinayak Shrivastav, Co-founder and CEO, Toch.AI

Toch recently managed to acquire a 12 million $ investment. So, was this more than a smart strategy or just simply good timing? Toch’s journey on transforming the digital video content space.

Vinayak: It is said that to create the right timing you need to work really hard for the thing you want. Good timing is when good spadework is followed by the right amount of rain. Needless to say, it did not happen overnight. The right moves at the right time, scores of errors that enabled learning and honest groundwork, networking and building the technology are all part of the process. Seeing through the tumultuous times during the peak of the pandemic, working tirelessly on the technology with a focus on customer satisfaction has contributed to our evolution and perseverance.

There was a hypothesis on digitization before the pandemic, however, the pandemic called for expedited maneuvers. It gave a clear direction for most businesses to safely invest in digital content creation.

[box type=”info” align=”” class=”” width=””]As per statistics, during the downtime, the spike in viewership was phenomenal, there was a 72% surge in streaming platforms and 87% spike in engagement in video content. Keeping the market trends in mind, we had preemptively innovated our technology to satiate the hunger for good video content. Our objective was to keep revving our own technology.[/box]

Toch’s strategy to penetrate the market with futuristic deep learning algorithms powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning(ML) worked immensely to effectuate solutions. Our collaboration with some reputed broadcasters, OTT platforms, sports leagues and federations, rights holders, and bulk content creators has been instrumental for our investors to believe in our conviction. Let’s say, “Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.”

Considering the present conditions, most companies will need to integrate new digital business models to stay sustainable. What will be your concerns for the tech industry to maintain its buoyancy?

Vinayak: It is estimated that 61% of the global GDP will be digitised over the next ten years and 70% of the impact on the economy would be based on digitally-enabled platforms. Acknowledging the fact that we are in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, most businesses are embracing incremental or radical digital widgets for their growth. That is directly proportional to the fact that most tech companies are headed towards ruthless competition. With complex intermingling of demographic and socio-economic matrices, we are already witnessing a collaborative culture amongst stakeholders, accelerated innovation processes and the malleability to change. We are already in times that are testing our resilience, where every tech company is a player, every upgrade in terms of the product or service tests the sedulousness. In order to be buoyant, there are a few things that are imperative and are a huge part of our progression plan – The first and most importantly: innovation attracts new customers, and preserves the existing ones.

Although an understatement, stellar customer service and consistent customer delight are crucial to survive and thrive.

Every human is distinct with their distinctive needs, we need to make our technology competitive, discreet and personalised as per the client’s need. Toch AI has the advantage of some proprietary features, although it gives a competitive edge over some key players, does not let us slack on technological breakthroughs by some worthy opponents.

Each team member of Toch AI is striving at creating brand equity in the industry of reliability, quality and integrity. As a growing company, we have a synergy of young minds with inspirational ideas and dextrous brainpower to execute viable innovations.

According to you what needs to be prioritized to integrate technology investments. And how conducive are the policies in India for the AI industry?

Vinayak: With an accelerated fusion of technology and businesses, most organisations have been able to create, collaborate and innovate a paradigm shift in their brand equity. Businesses have reimagined the role of technology as an enabler as opposed to the earlier conservative approach. AI and ML based algorithms through data augmentation help businesses to systemise and remain ahead with negligible disruptions in the workflow. Technology has engaged in incomparable client norms, revving revenue and levitating customer experience. Newer business models have been launched in record time owing to the cloud and associated innovations, slicing rigid processes and tardy executions.

[box type=”success” align=”” class=”” width=””]Businesses need to trust in technological capabilities to unriddle the deeper value with unfaltering operational excellence. A study has classified the market dynamics and technological advances on the various facets of work: define, assign and work order (irrespective of the job location.) Technology has dichotomously evolved the workforce and workplace with agility.[/box]

As the eighth country in the top ten list by AI patent families in the global scenario, The Government of India had launched #AIforAll a national policy on Artificial Intelligence in 2018. NITI Aayog stated that India would focus on AI models and R&D on agriculture, education, healthcare, smart city and transport. AI Gamechangers is an official program that drives the AI models in India with a disbursement of $477 million to boost AI, IoT, Big Data, Ml robotics, and cyber security.

The emergence of new AI based startups in India has been colossal for disruptive technologies. With the timeline memorandum created by the NITI Aayog, that will reflect on the efficacy and developments by the year 2025. Citizens would be able to adapt to smart cities with AI-managed healthcare, education and transport systems.

The Government of India is using key features like facial recognition and hotspot analysis, biometric identification, criminal investigation, traffic and crowd management, gadgets to empower women safety, proliferating revenues in the forest, cleaning rivers, endangered animal protection and digital agriculture. CAIR (Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics) a laboratory of the DRDO has made some strategic products for battlefield communication and management systems. To summarize, Indians are ready to witness and harness the power of AI in the future.

Vinayak Shrivastav, Co-founder and CEO, Toch.AI

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ET Edge Insights, its management, or its members

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