On Thursday, Microsoft declared its collaboration with the Indian startup Sarvam AI to back the advancement of voice-based generative artificial intelligence (genAI) applications. This partnership was revealed during the three-day visit of CEO Satya Nadella, as the tech giant strives to enhance the broader acceptance of its products among consumers in India, the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
The companies said that Sarvam AI’s gene technology will be built on top of Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, enabling developers to create solutions with ease and scale. The Indian startup is building gene models specifically designed for India’s languages and context. It recently released the open-source Hindi language Large Language Model, OpenHathi-Hi-v0.1, based on Llama2-7B and achieving GPT-3.5 performance for Indian languages.
The company said that the partnership with Sarvam AI will help Microsoft’s efforts to empower India’s workforce to take advantage of the transforming power of generative AI. This is part of Nadella’s vision of having 2 million students, job seekers, and women trained in AI skills by 2025.
Microsoft also announced a new program to help local news organizations develop their generative AI capabilities for journalistic use. It will provide the training, resources, and support to enable these journalists to make generative AI tools to improve their ability to gather and share information with their audiences. The program is offered through the Microsoft News Lab, which aims to create and foster innovation in the news industry and will include hands-on workshops for journalists and media professionals nationwide.
As India’s digital economy expands, the demand for a more personal experience drives a shift toward voice-based AI. This trend is accelerating due to the rise of augmented and virtual reality, making using immersive technologies through voice commands easier. This is fuelling the growth of voice-based assistants, which perform various tasks, including making calendar appointments, booking travel, and ordering food.
To address this growing demand, Microsoft has partnered with several Indian startups to develop their voice-based AI solutions. These include AI-based healthcare startups Persistent Systems and OHC, Sarvam AI, and Bhavish Aggarwal’s Krutrim.
With the advent of generative AI, more people are likely to start using it at work — whether for experimental purposes or to support their daily workflows. As a result, IT leaders need to clearly understand how to manage generative AI within their organization and develop guidelines for its safe use. Gartner recommends crafting a usage policy to ensure that employees are using the tool responsibly rather than outright banning it. For example, policies could include guidance on what types of information can be inputted, limiting how long the system can run, and clearly defining acceptable outputs, such as factual errors, hallucinations, and biases. This will help protect the organization against privacy violations, data leaks, and security threats.