As AI accelerates workforce disruption, absence of strong social security and reskilling systems risks deep job losses

Floated in 2018 in the early days of the AI revolution, the startup is led by co-founders Jyotirmay Kanthal (Jadavpur University, ex-IBM & ITC), Rimjhim Ray (Imperial College London, ex-Tata & Leo Burnett) and Sk Mamtajuddin (ex-Apple). Spotle has worked with over 3500 institutes, corporates to build Next-Gen digital and AI skills in the country.

The company aims to train one million students in AI over the next year. Speaking to Bizz Buzz, Rimjhim Ray, co-founder, Spotle.ai, one of the pioneering startups in AI-led learning and hiring explains how AI will be changing the dynamics of India's business landscape, and other evolving facets of business

How do you see AI changing the dynamics of India's business landscape?

AI in India is an opportunity. While we are still waiting for a large LLM model to emerge out of India, startups like emergent, Ggnani.ai, Sarthak are quietly rewriting the way business will be done in the future. In India the focus is on use cases with strong ground level impact.

In terms of business impact, I believe, AI will have a strong democratising role for India’s 6 crore+ small businesses. AI today has the capability to build websites, automate marketing, set up ecommerce stores. The impact is two fold: Founders and business owners can use AI co-pilots to bring down operating costs, hire less and accelerate growth

On the flip side we will see more AI induced layoffs. Unless we build a social security system or a strong reskilling programme, the job loss can create an economic imbalance which will push down consumption and finally impact businesses. How we work the balance in terms of policies, a holistic strategy by Indian Inc will tell us how we emerge as a superpower in the AI game.

What specific problem does AI solve, and is it an actual business need or just a feature?

Let’s simplify this. A business is built to serve a specific customer need profitably.

AI helps a business drive both topline by unlocking new revenue streams and optimises bottomline by managing costs. AI is now being deployed across every business operation - marketing and sales, HR, operations, financial management to uncover new business insights, accelerate production and optimising the deployment of human personnel. The question has shifted from why AI to how AI?

At Spotle.ai, we help companies adopt AI through learning and consulting programs to quickly adapt to a fast-changing, post AI business environment.

How does one's AI solution align with one's long-term business goals?

This question becomes easy if you intrinsically understand the application of AI. If you break down the top uses of AI in business it comes to: 1. Uncover business insights and deep research across volumes of business data; 2. Accelerate production; 3. Smoothen operations. Break down the path to your long term business goal and see which aspect of AI can help shorten the step.

Do you think AI will replace human jobs in the future?

Yes it will and it already is. Take it from me AI co-pilots have been far more efficient in entry level work- answering customer queries, generating social media campaigns, writing and maintaining code. With more powerful generative AI models emerging even more senior jobs are at risk. Look at the movie Mahabharata generated by AI.

A movie of that proportion would have required hundreds of crew members instead it was just generated by couple of technologists and AI. Yes the outcome isn't perfect yet but it is getting better. Human jobs are at far greater risk than they everywhere and that’s why AI reskilling isn’t just an option. It’s a critical tool for survival.

Do you trust AI systems with your personal data?

Did you trust Google or Meta with your personal data? Yet bigtech has been using that data to serve you ads and make billions. Truth is as soon as you are on the internet, you are packets of data. With AI that level of personal intrusion has gone up.

For example there are serious privacy concerns with AI browsers like Atlas where you can become the victim of this deadly threat called prompt injection. Use AI browsers and systems with caution and reach out to experts to help use AI safely.

Do you think AI should be regulated by governments? ...

AI is finally trained on human data. If the data is biased, AI will be biased too. Your AI’s performance is good as the data it is trained on.

Are you worried about the ethical implications of AI?

AI does give unfair advantage to those wielding the AI tools. From information warfare to largescale layoffs and systemic biases, the ethical and governance implications of AI are serious. It is important every public and private body builds ethical frameworks for AI otherwise AI could easily turn into a Frankenstein's monster.

How does an organisation/enterprise ensure the accuracy and performance of your AI models?

Invest in aggregating, classifying and cleaning data. The quality of AI outcomes depends on the quality of data models. The criticality of data was underlined by Meta’s 14 billion dollar acquisition of AI data company Scale AI.

How should an AI-driven organisation handle data privacy, storage, and security?

To have a good AI architecture you must first invest in a robust cloud and data infrastructure. Ensure you have security compliant servers. If you are leveraging open AI or other LLM models to build applications for your company, be mindful of the security policies.

Are you inadvertently sharing your company data to train AI models? Ensure if you want AI to work on sensitive company data you use in-house hosted models, secure workspaces or secure GDPR compliant applications only.

How should one handle AI risks, such as data bias and potential misuse?

Data bias cannot be completely eliminated. However you can minimise it by ensuring AI is being trained on as large and representative a set as possible. Or remove fields that can cause bias.

While reviewing resumes for example remove gender or racial information. Years of human bias based on race, gender, sexuality will otherwise prejudice any AI system.

Do we have an AI governance framework and acceptable use policy in place?

India AI, the government's AI arm has recently laid out a comprehensive governance policy that guides key AI actors on applications and safety standards on AI. We need enforceable laws on the usage of AI. However it is a difficult challenge given how rapidly AI is evolving.

How should an enterprise protect the integrity of its AI models and data?

The basic tenets of cybersecurity remain same. Invest in data security and privacy. However, we need to be more agile to counter AI induced threats. Be mindful of evolving external attacks like AI-enabled impersonification, prompt injection and data biases. New threats can only be eliminated by constantly evolving security measures.

How important would be the training aspect in taking AI initiatives to a meaningful level?

India needs over one million AI-trained personnel by 2026. AI has already found its way into CBSE curriculum as the government throws its weight behind making India an AI-ready nation. This is only possible when we invest heavily in building the AI temper at macro level and AI skills at granular level.

The AI education industry is already pegged at $2 billion and growing at a CAGR of 40 per cent. To emerge as a superpower, India has to build a robust AI learning and development ecosystem. Indian academia, corporates and startups have to come together to turn the AI movement into a reality.