Indian tech firms detail AI tactics to lower costs for budget phone users
At Inc42’s inaugural CTO Summit 2026 in Bengaluru, executives from ShareChat, Moj, Meesho, Rapido, and Shadowfax discussed how they are adapting AI products for India’s budget smartphones, multiple languages, and patchy networks. Meesho said its voice‑led shopping assistant Vaani generated 22% higher conversions among users in some Tier III and IV cohorts compared to non‑users.
Vaani was activated by 1.5 million users in its first month, according to Anand Jain, head of engineering at Meesho. Rapido said its combined model acquisition and people costs stay under four paise per ride, allowing experimentation while controlling expenses. Shadowfax uses historical delivery data and AI‑based address matching to improve location identification, noting that incorrect pincodes and unclear addresses can raise logistics costs by about 1% of margins. ShareChat’s CTO Nitin Jain explained that the company built infrastructure to swap AI models, reuse contextual information, and assess performance when switching providers.
“If we get married to one particular kind of model or approach, that’s not going to work,” Nitin Jain, CTO at ShareChat and Moj said.
“The feature was activated by 1.5 Mn users in its first month,” Anand Jain, head of engineering at Meesho said.
Earlier the same day, Flipkart’s CPTO Balaji Thiagarajan outlined how the company is combining search, conversational interactions, voice, and visual inputs to personalise product discovery. The summit marked Inc42’s first CTO‑focused event, bringing together technology leaders from major Indian consumer internet firms.
What we know
Meesho reported 22% higher conversions among Vaani users than non-users in some Tier III and IV cohorts.
The feature was activated by 1.5 Mn users in its first month.
Nitin Jain said companies should avoid becoming tied to a single model or approach.
Rapido's combined model acquisition and people costs are less than four paise per ride.
Shadowfax's AI address matching impacts around 1% of the company’s margins.