According to TechCrunch, when considering more than 4,000 applications to participate in the AI startup acceleration program in India run by Google and the Accel investment fund, most ideas are considered "coverage models". These are projects that only integrate chatbots or AI features into existing software without creating new working processes.
Indian venture capitalist Prayank Swaroop - Accel's partner said that about 70% of rejected applications belong to this group. The remaining projects often fall into fields that are too popular such as marketing automation or AI recruitment tools, so it is difficult to differentiate in the market.
Google and Accel's Atoms program on artificial intelligence was announced in November to support startups in the early stages of building AI products that meet needs in India. Selected companies can receive a maximum investment of 2 million USD from Accel and Google's AI Futures Fund. They are also granted cloud computing and AI credit worth up to 350,000 USD from Google.
This year, the program received nearly 4 times more applications than previous courses, in which many first-time startup groups. The AI ecosystem in India is still mainly focused on business applications. About 62% of registered ideas are related to productivity tools, 13% are aimed at software development and programming. This shows that most projects are business software instead of consumer products.
Jonathan Silber - co-founder and Director of Google's AI Futures Foundation said that the 5 startups selected are all focused on areas where Google expects AI to soon be widely applied in practice. The program also does not require startups to only use Google's model, because many companies combine many different AI models depending on their needs.
According to Mr. Silber, feedback from startups participating in the program will be transferred to Google DeepMind development teams to improve AI models in the future.
According to TechCrunch, the 5 companies selected in this year's program include: K-Dense - an AI research assistant development company supporting life sciences and chemistry; Dodge.ai - a company building automation agents for enterprise ERP systems; Persistence Labs - a company focused on voice AI for switchboards; Zingroll - an AI-based film and television program production platform; Level Plane - a company applying AI in industrial automation for the automotive and aerospace industries.
