Finnish phone maker HMD is bundling an Indian AI chatbot into a new smartphone as it seeks to tap into the local market.

Finnish phone maker HMD today launched its first smartphone, called the Vibe 2 5G, which comes pre-loaded with Indian AI company Sarvam’s Chatbot Indus. The two companies first announced the partnership during the India AI Summit held in New Delhi in February.

The Indus app is powered by a locally trained Sarvam model that includes 105 billion parameters — a measure of the scale and sophistication of AI — and Launched at the AI ​​Summit. The app supports 22 Indian languages ​​and mid-sentence code switching (the ability to seamlessly mix languages ​​mid-conversation, such as switching between Hindi and English), which helps the assistant better understand the context of the query. Currently, the app does not support offline use, nor does it have any built-in feature to summon the AI ​​assistant through a shortcut.

The partnership serves as a potential proving ground for both companies to gauge appetite for an India-focused chatbot.

“With this partnership, the first thing we want to do is bring the Indus app to consumers,” said Ravi Kunwar, HMD CEO and vice president, India and Asia Pacific, in an interview with TechCrunch. “Once they start using it, we will move to the second phase to focus on achieving more traction. Right now, by pre-loading the app, we want to be more accessible to users,” he said.

The Vibe 2 5G is a mid-range Android phone with a 6,000 mAh battery and is priced at INR 10,999 ($114). The devices in the Vibe series of smartphones will also get the chatbot, and the company is also expected to launch a feature phone with Sarvam AI integration in the coming months, Kunwar added.

This feature phone integration may ultimately be more important for both companies. HMD captured a 4% share of India’s feature phone market in 2025, but its share in smartphones was minimal — the company doesn’t even appear in the top 15 list, according to analyst firm IDC.

Although these are the early days of the Indus era, the download numbers reflect that. Nearly three months after its launch, the app has been downloaded just over 293,000 times in India across platforms, according to Appfigures. In comparison, ChatGPT has been downloaded 43.9 million times in the country.

It’s a big gap, but the strategy behind the HMD deal may be more important than the early numbers. Bundling a regional AI assistant with affordable hardware — especially feature phones — is one of the most straightforward distributions available in a market as large and linguistically diverse as India, where English-language AI tools are limited in scope. For investors and operators watching how AI adoption takes hold in emerging markets, this partnership is worth monitoring.

Sarvam has been one of the leading AI startups in India. Apart from launching the Indus app, the company has been focusing on enterprise partnerships, especially for voice-based solutions. It’s on track to become one of the most funded AI startups in the country, with a $300 million funding round at a $1.5 billion valuation reportedly in the works.