Indian company Sarfam wants to bring its AI models to phones, cars and smart glasses

Indian AI startup Sarvam plans to bring its newly released AI models to users by deploying them on its Nokia feature phones, cars and smart glasses.

The company, which is backed by the likes of Lightspeed, PeakXV and Khosla Ventures, said at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi that it uses cutting-edge models that take up just a megabyte of space, can run on most phones with current processors, and can work offline.

The company is teaming up with HMD to bring the conversational AI assistant to Nokia and HMD phones. A video demo showed a user tapping a dedicated AI button on a feature phone to speak with an AI assistant in the local language to get guidance on government schemes or local markets. It’s not clear if all the AI ​​features showcased at the event will work offline.

“With Edge AI, we want to bring intelligence to every phone, laptop, car, and even a new generation of devices,” Tushar Goswami, head of Edge AI at Sarvam, said during a presentation.

He said that the company worked with Qualcomm to adjust its models to suit the latter’s chips. Sarvam did not provide details about the devices on which the models will be deployed. Qualcomm said it is developing a “sovereign AI experience suite” that will work across a range of devices, including phones, PCs, laptops, cars and IoT devices.

“Our collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies can accelerate how we move sovereign AI from research to deployment,” Vivek Raghwan, co-founder and CEO of Sarvam, said in a statement.

“This will allow Sarvam to design models and applications that operate near the edge, protect data, and are ready for widespread adoption.”

Sarvam also said it is working with German engineering giant Bosch to bring AI assistants to cars, though it did not reveal many other details.

The startup also showcased a pair of AI-powered smart glasses, dubbed Sarvam Kaze, which are designed and manufactured in India. The company’s co-founder, Pratyush Kumar, said the glasses are a “builders’ device” and will be available in May.

Sarvam has so far operated largely in the enterprise market, offering its voice-focused models for use cases such as customer support. New models and partnerships indicate that the company is shifting its focus toward consumer use cases.