For a layperson like me — not a techno-nerd, not a coder — AI felt less like code and more like Aladdin’s genie. Not magic. But possibility on command.
At the #IndiaAIImpactSummit2026, what struck me wasn’t jargon. It was application. Real, usable, everyday application. Let me explain it the way I experienced it.
AI as the New Genie
You’re a start-up founder. You have an idea — but not the entire ecosystem.
Earlier, that meant: hiring designers, consulting pricing experts, building a data team, pitching blindly to investors.
Now? You could stand at one booth and say:
“Pitch my venture.” A tool designed by entrepreneur Vignesh Iyer helps structure your idea into a compelling investor deck. It refines language, sharpens financial assumptions, and stress-tests logic.
AI becomes your pitch coach.
Not Happy With Market Furniture?
Let’s say you’re dissatisfied with what’s available. Instead of complaining about generic sofa sets, you walk up to a design-led AI solution created by Kalyani and imagine your own chair. Then, using Ambaram’s AI-led interface: you design your custom sofa. Visualise materials and proportions, optimise dimensions, generate manufacturing-ready specifications. You don’t need to be an architect.
You need clarity of taste. AI becomes your design collaborator.
Don’t Know How to Price It?
Pricing is both science and psychology. An AI-powered pricing engine built by Raman can: Benchmark competitors, analyse demand curves, suggest optimal price bands, simulate profit scenarios. Earlier, this required a consulting firm. Now, it’s software. AI becomes your CFO’s assistant.
Running a Company But Drowning in Data?
This was the most fascinating. A system like Saarthi operates like a company’s brain: Integrating internal data, summarising trends, flagging anomalies, predicting operational risks. You don’t need dashboards across ten tabs.
You need intelligence distilled. AI becomes institutional memory
What AI Seemed to Me
Not a threat. Not a replacement. Not a cold algorithm.
It felt like a strategist. A designer, a financial analyst, a data scientist. All sitting in the same room — available on demand.
For someone who has spent decades interviewing developers, industrialists, policymakers and founders, I saw something different this time.
Earlier, scale required: Capital + People + Time. Now, scale increasingly requires:
Clarity + Prompt + Execution.
NK Reflection
India stands at an inflection point. If housing transformed 260 industries, as Dr. Niranjan Hiranandani once said, AI may transform 260 functions inside a single company. From design to pricing to operations to pitching — AI compresses friction.
And for a journalist who thrives on understanding systems, what fascinated me most was this: AI is not eliminating ambition. It is democratising capability. Perhaps that is the real genie.
