Google Cloud inks pact with Axis My India to build 'A' super app

Search giant Google has also joined the frenzy of creating a super app; however, the company is aiming to democratise information on citizen services with this. Termed as 'A' app, Google Cloud on Thursday announced building a super app in collaboration with Axis My India to provide citizen-centric services in India.

'A' app, the platform will leverage Google Cloud's GenAI capabilities to provide a host of services to users in multiple languages. The announcement was made at the 9th edition of the "Google for India" event at Delhi's Pragati Maidan.

The multilingual super app called 'A' will provide information related to government social welfare schemes, basic day-to-day amenities, employment opportunities, and healthcare benefits on their smartphones.

"All the services will be available to citizens based on their individual and family profile and names. Our goal is to basically take this to about 250 million Indian households, which actually means we will be looking to impact over a billion Indians," said Bikram Singh Bedi, managing director, Google Cloud, while talking to Business Standard.

According to Bedi, the 'A' app will employ Google Cloud's Vertex AI technology for real-time transactions. Further, the super app will facilitate two-way communication in 13 Indian languages. "This will act like a physical and digital Jan Suvidha Kendra which will be for the common man," said Bedi.

Google further announced the extension of its partnership with ONDC, where it will now help the Farmer Produce Organisations (FPOs) in selling their produce online. It has partnered with agritech platform SignCatch to build a B2B marketplace to be put up on ONDC. Further, using GenAI and its language capabilities, Google Cloud will help FPOs to build catalogues online and reach out to other merchants across the country.

"With Google's GenAI and cutting-edge tools, we are poised to provide a boost to India's farmers, enabling them to seamlessly navigate the digital commerce landscape, enhancing their visibility, and accelerating their path to success. Together, ONDC and Google Cloud stand proudly at the forefront of this transformative journey," T Koshy, MD & CEO at ONDC.

The cloud platform will also collaborate with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology's Bhashini programme to launch a centre of excellence for generative AI and language inclusivity. Google aims to train over one million professionals and students with generative AI knowledge and skills, as a part of this collaboration.

"We will work along with them to train the models; then once those models have been trained with the data sets, they will need to be trained with the respective languages, which is where Bhashini's technology will come in. After those models have been trained with the Indian datasets and Indian languages, they will be given to various departments to essentially use for their use cases or their workflows or applications," said Bedi, while speaking to Business Standard about the partnership.

"We will now be able to accelerate the development of citizen-centric services in Indian languages, and speed up the development; this will also help you speed up the development of homegrown GenAI technologies," he added.