CP Gurnani teases exciting developments following collaboration with Rahul Bhatia for new AI venture

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Rahul Bhatia, the Group Managing Director of InterGlobe, and CP Gurnani, Chairman of Assago Group and former MD & CEO of Tech Mahindra, have teamed up to delve into the world of technology through Artificial Intelligence and launched a joint venture firm, AIonOS. In a CNBC-TV18 interview, they discussed extensively about AI implementation and transformation.

Below is an edited transcript of the interview:

Q: How did this partnership come about?

Bhatia: I have known CP for a long time, and I knew he was coming off his obligations at Tech Mahindra. We were having this conversation about trying to team up together. We used to have a technology business which we had sold in 2018. We wanted to go back into the space. But obviously, we were looking for the right sort of partnership. And here we are.

Q: How do you differentiate this venture from what is around us at this point in the IT sector?

Gurnani: I was always a corporate entrepreneur. I did create ventures, and I did scale up ventures, but it was never where I was responsible for contributing right from day zero. So, I said now I need to become an entrepreneur myself. That was my first driver. The second driver was we built a great industry… we deliver global-scale products, and we do global-scale customer work. But more often than not we are dependent on products and platforms, which have not been made in India. Why is it that we cannot create a software-as-a-service (SaaS) venture that addresses the global market? I am not saying it has never been done, but it is more than when I started researching the subject and thanks to my knowing Rahul Bhatia, it was very clear that travel, transformation, logistics and hospitality (TTLH) is a market which probably can benefit from new intervention.

Also Read | IndiGo’s Rahul Bhatia and former Tech Mahindra CEO CP Gurnani join hands for an AI venture

Q: Do you already have clients on board?

Gurnani: A few clients with whom we are doing proofs of concept. The reason is that a product takes a little longer to evolve and build, but when you are trying to integrate products and improve a particular process, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), I think it is easier to do proofs of concept. So, our current boardroom conversations are – a) sharing the vision of the products and b) what and how soon can we show you what AI will be able to do for your businesses.

Q: How long will it take for you to be able to deliver on the promise that you are holding up?

Gurnani: I left Tech Mahindra on December 19 (2023) and since then most of the days when we have been working together, listening to the customers, talking to the prospects, and building teams. Over the next one year, you will see a lot of good announcements. This is just the beginning.

Q: What is the kind of capital that you are putting into this business as it gets started?

Bhatia: Without going into the numbers, we are well-funded for several years to come. We will see how things go.

Q: What are the pain points that you hope to address? What are the big challenges you face within each of these industries that you hope to solve?

Gurnani: The best part of these few months is listening to the customers, listening to some of the young startups and also talking to some of the large hyper scalers because all of us are trying to solve some of the challenges. So, let’s take this example, you go to the airport, I go to the airport, we use Digi Yatra, but it does not connect to the last gate; somewhere there is an integration challenge, somewhere there is a data sharing challenge, somewhere there is a work to be done between three or four different applications that the airline or the aircraft is using. It’s a beautiful product. It’s just that it requires a little more interfaces and products.

For the full interview, watch the accompanying video.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow