A lot is being built in India in Cloud tech and AI: Bikram Singh Bedi

India has a large population and its innovation "stays significantly ahead of the curve", he said

India continues to be one of the fastest-growing markets in the world for Google Cloud, said Bikram Singh Bedi, the company’s vice-president (VP) and country manager. India has a large population and its innovation “stays significantly ahead of the curve”, he told Aashish Aryan in an interview in New Delhi. Bedi spoke about Cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies. Edited excerpts:

 

Given the world macroeconomic situation and everything that is happening on the tariff front, how important is the Indian market for Google Cloud?

 

I am not qualified to comment on the macro or the global situation, but what I can tell you is that India is and continues to be one of the high-focus markets as far as Google is concerned. That very obviously translates into Google Cloud as well, for very apparent reasons such as a large population and innovation that stays significantly ahead of the curve.

 

We are not just a consumer but also a builder economy for the world. In technologies like Cloud, analytics, security and AI, a lot is being built in India. Some solutions that are being built here by Google Cloud are first in the world simply because of the scale at which India operates.

 

For example, some of the work that we are doing in AgriStack or DPI (digital public infrastructure), DPG (digital public goods)...it is something we are building here and then taking it to the world.

 

What is your company’s growth in India compared to other countries?

 

We do not break numbers regionally but what I can share with you is that India is one of the fastest-growing markets for us globally as well as in Asia. In countries like India, Cloud computing is no longer just about infrastructure and storage options, but it has expanded to include meaningful business problems for companies being solved at scale.

 

For example, Federal Bank’s use of Google Cloud’s AI to improve customer experience by automating users' queries, appointment scheduling, and order processing has resulted in a 25 per cent rise in customer satisfaction. It has simultaneously cut customer care costs by nearly 50 per cent.

 

Agentic AI has quickly moved from being a buzzword to an urgent need for companies. What is Google Cloud doing in that space?

 

Companies across the board have started quicker adoption of agentic AI solutions (AI systems that are designed to make decisions autonomously), especially in the sales and marketing divisions. Today, when you have to go sell a product to a company, you should be able to understand what that company does, what would be the potential use cases and what they are already doing in that space. 

 

A deep research agent could provide the sales and marketing teams with comprehensive insights that could be used by them to pitch better products and services. Apart from assisting sales and marketing teams, agentic AI solutions can also help companies hire better resources by matching project-wise skill set requirements with that of the candidate. 

 

The current process of hiring candidates, which involves looking at resumes and shortlisting them based on the keywords mentioned therein, will soon be outdated and people develop varied skillsets that may not necessarily be mentioned in the formal education and resumes. With agentic AI, companies get the ability to bring all of that data together and then ask the agent to assist them according to a certain project: which candidate had the best skill set for the project and not just the resume.