Microsoft to hardsell AI to transform Indian businesses

Microsoft on Wednesday said it would work with 650 Indian vendors to deploy its Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions for improving and transforming Indian businesses across verticals.

"We are working with our partners to bring AI to all sectors in India, which offers a huge opportunity to create a positive impact in the world over. Our partners will give solutions to solve societal and business problems," said Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari at the company's conference here.

The Indian arm of the US-based tech firm showcased its recent AI solutions at the event on "AI for all in India", where its partners converged to drive the new disruptive technology.

The multinational technology firm is working to "democratise" the AI technology and make it available for all, said Microsoft's Executive Vice President, Business Development, Peggy Johnson.

"As we discover newer challenges in the world we live in, AI can help us find better and more sustainable solutions," she said.

Through a tie-up with city-based healthcare firm named Forus Health, Microsoft said it has put together its AI-based retinal imaging interface into Forus Health's digital imaging devices to examine and evaluate a human eye.

The AI technology is expected to help in identifying diabetic retinopathy (a complication of diabetes that affects the eye) among diabetic population.

Microsoft is also working with other partners and vendors like Indian e-tail major Flipkart, Indian online cab aggregator, Ola, for its automated entertainment system Ola Play among others for AI-based solutions including demand forecasting, fraud detection, customer segmentation etc.

The technology is also being put to use to forecast the agricultural output, for which Microsoft is working with the Karnataka Agricultural Price Commission, under the state's Department of Agriculture.

Through the use of remote-sensing data from satellite images, the farmers are given sowing advisories for each climate and also predictions for the prices of crops such as "toor dal" depending on the output, in advance, thereby helping farmers manage their crops better.

Several of Microsoft's partners are also making use of facial recognition and text analytics solutions, which make use of AI.

--IANS

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