STI and H uh sir theme is keeping bat ahead and you are, I think, a poster boy who has actually realized this dream of keeping bhat ahead, right? And I'm using, I'll stress on the word bhat. So first of all, what do you think of this theme and what is your thought process about this?
Yeah, I think first of all, thank you so much and thank you so much for having me here. I do agree we are talking now about the India that goes beyond the top cities, and that is exactly the opportunity of India. Because it is continuously being proven that up to a certain point of time, let's say the last 10, 20 years, the big cities used to have a large percentage of contribution to GDP. And now that has reached the tier six, tier five cities also. And maybe the India is not correct to pronounce, but the bhat is. And the good thing I want to also tell here is, and this is what is important, I personally believe that by calling that we are building for India and separately bhat, you also sort of become un-inclusive or it is not wholesome to call out that you're building two separate things. But it is rather your own customer that you are addressing in different geographies, if you will. So building for bhat and keeping bhat ahead for 2047, I truly admire that you could take a stand, and I'm sure in the long term it will go long. So thank you for that.
Absolutely. But Vijay, you will play a pivotal role in keeping bhat ahead, and I'm not making a rhetorical statement. But one thing is very clear that there are couple of engines, but the key engine is going to be innovation and technology. These twin engines can ensure that India continues to move forward. What is your take, because you are considered to be a poster boy of innovation and using technology?
First of all, thank you for calling that out. I go to college engineering college convocations and I tell students that when you are recruited by a company that has international customers, there is a joy in that, you get a little more money than a normal job. But when you work for a country and companies belonging to that country, you're actually growing that country. When you solve your own country's problem, you're growing all of us together. So in your life, maybe 20 years back, it was not an option because the better option was inevitably in a commercial sense and reward sense and many other fulfillment of self needs. You could say that I would go internationally. But I can say in the last 10 years, this country has dramatically changed. And we as young Indians should not just think that we can have a journey outside India, but we should think, what if I try to create an opportunity or solution to the opportunity in India? That will do two things: you will get reward of the country's economy and you will also be able to solve for what our country's needs are. And that I believe is the first and foremost element to it. That India, which traditionally was deprived of the talent to solve for India's problem, has now ample enough of it. The very Startup India, the very Digital India initiative our honorable prime minister continues to pursue, and then we continue to see every year more elements to show up, is a classic example of it. That government or the leadership of this country is able to respect and honor the people who are trying to solve bottom-up the problems that this country has. And now, like we, you know, every foreigner who comes to India sees the payment system, sees the digital infrastructure, even commerce elements that we're talking about, just service deliveries, digital service deliveries. These are very phenomenal global experiences that we are building in India. So talent exists, opportunity exists, and now the viable business model and the companies that have been able to be successful with it are inspiring even a generation ahead of us and an even larger generation to solve for even further problems. So now you're talking about space startups, which was a very interesting thing to guess because earlier you were building something very visible next to you. Food delivery, payments, these are very visible to you problems. Space is a little farther away in your thought process that you'll solve for it. But it is so good to see, it is so inspiring to see the young generation of our country is able to see the problems which are long-term fruit-bearing, not a short-term gratification only.
Right. Vijay, I want to understand on technology, you know, there is this whole wave of revolution that's taking place thanks to artificial intelligence. And we have two superpowers almost at loggerheads about who will dominate this technology. India obviously is going to play a very crucial role because of the population, because of the demography, and because of our technological progress. What is your outlook on AI?
Obviously, there is no doubt about it that AI's capabilities are so revolutionary and more or less I would guess that they are underestimated by many because not many are playing with it. Only a set of people who are very early adopter, change agent sort of people are using it. And to give you a clue, if you were using internet in 94, 95, 96, it is that era. It is not even 2000, it is 94, 95. Remember some of you would remember the Lynx browser used to be, which was a text-only browser. So today's AI is a text-only AI. Literally yesterday we saw the first image AI get launched, and look at the excitement the world is having. So the text AI was the 94, 95, 96 of internet. Now we are getting images, then we'll get videos, and then we'll get multimedia, and then we'll get the experience which is like, oh my God, how could I live without it experience. So right now it is fitting into solving certain elements of our work. Over the period it will become a significant element of our work, meaning without it it won't be possible, like a smartphone. We feel it's a support system. So this is the revolution of our times. And just like internet or smartphone revolution, it will be bigger than the previous revolutions. And like you said, the fight is going on between two countries right now. But at the same point in time, India has the opportunity to build a sovereign model, an India model, an India foundation model. But the challenge is the race is so fast right now. The race has accelerated with the features and nuances that maybe the open source revolution that is happening in both sides of the world, we would ride that to build a foundation model. So that is a lot yet pending to be done.
Right. But Vijay, are we doing enough in terms of innovation? And especially like you mentioned, the race is actually very fast and things are evolving on a daily basis, sometimes on an hourly basis. Are we doing enough, or are we just keeping pace, or are we just waking up to it?
Okay, so I remember somebody tweeted on the internet when R1 got released, R1 is DeepSeek R1 model, and the person said that wow, we're busy delivering food while somebody is building R1. But this is exactly what I want everybody as an audience or innovators or the business player to know. It's a state of life. When you are a teenager, you don't do the job that adults do. That ecosystem has continuously grown ahead of us in terms of timeline and maturity, resources and scale, versus our ecosystem. The good thing is that you are expecting from us. You don't expect this from Europe, you don't expect this from Turkey, you don't expect this from even the nearest population, whether Indonesia or Pakistan at all. I mean, Pakistan, my point is that we are at least a part of our global ecosystem of technology and capability on the back of the talent of India in the race. Yes, I can never be saying that we will do enough. If we were literally neck to neck with China, which is the next port of milestone or thing to benchmark upon, then also we will not be satisfied because there is something called US ahead. If we were in the US, then we will say the same thing that somebody's saying. So the race continues. At the same point of time, I'm happy that we are part of the race, and I'm sad that the amount of things that we have to do to that milestone are so many that maybe in the AI race we will have to be finding out our success in a way that this is the last frontier where we were number three. In the next frontier, why not be the top spot and lead the world? So that is what I believe.
Right. So now I want to come back to your business. And the reason I'm coming back to your business is because the way Google changed the entrepreneurial ecosystem globally with their platforms to a large extent, that's what Paytm has done in India, especially for smaller businesses in tier five, tier six, like you mentioned. Now that and when you look at the technological revolution or change that is coming, how are you going to deal with it or cope with it?
Yeah, thank you first of all once again. We feel truly privileged that we can serve Indian small businesses. And coming from that family background, my father was a teacher and we lived in Aligarh, so everybody around us was either a small business or a government job. The funniest thing I can in hindsight tell you is that somebody told me in engineering college that the highest paying job is of a CEO, and I said, and how do you become the CEO? And who CEO? Because I never had somebody who was around me till I reached engineering college who was CEO. Everybody was somebody in a government job department or somewhere, but not CEO. Right now, this is where the core of core of Paytm also originates from. We help the small business, we help the masses of this country. And the technology inability and capability that we are bringing in, I see our role not only as a financial inclusion champion, but also the technology inclusion champion. So you saw Soundbox, which was something on the counter. We want to increase its capability and we will increase its capability and at the element, infuse AI into it expectedly, so that it can try discovering some of the services and things that this small shopkeeper can get a better advantage of. If nothing at least it has a memory. Towards what I'm trying to tell you is that we continue to try out a number of things within ourselves and then try to figure out how we can build something which is the largest common denominator product that you deliver. Obviously we built an invoicing system etc., but they're not at scale large as visual impact. But I do believe AI will give us an opportunity to make lower cost, highly compliant technology systems for small businesses. And this will generate further formalization of the economy because right now payment is the beginning, and the technology will be the slope that takes it off. So in my opinion, the number of services, just like I told you, can practically be an assistant, practically a business partner, practically somebody whom you can call effectively a co-founder of your business if you are a small business.
Right. But Vijay, I want to understand that, let's say, if you reflect on the last 20 years, and I'm just taking 20 years as a sample because this is the 20th year of Times Now. In the next 20 years, where do you see your business in terms of the nature of services that it will offer? And the reason I'm asking is because Paytm itself has actually revolutionized, we don't realize it, but the service industry to a large extent in a large country like India.
Thank you. 20 years forward, independent India, I do believe that by that time we would have become just like we were talking about some technologies right now. The use case is that beautiful. So whether it is payment, payment would have extended to financial services. We've learned that the extension of payment is in offering and giving many financial services companies an opportunity to serve these small small businesses. And in my opinion, if we all are talking about GDP growth, it will happen when the small business contributes towards GDP way more than it does today. And it does in an informal sector in a way. Right now it does recruit local people, it does create the job, but they are not identified or they are guessed on a percentage basis or a number basis. By bringing formal into it, the government, the regulation, the entities or rest of the business ecosystem can support them. So in the next 20 years, I believe that the person and the company identified as, oh, these guys changed the small business industry sector of this country starting from payment, giving them financial services, giving them technology. The world never looks the same. And today if we are an example for our country or our country an example for the world in payment, extending towards now in financial services as we are working on, that time it can be like, and that way I do believe that we will be able to bring literally contributions in the ranges of, I'm talking about 20 years forward, in trillions. Because these small businesses that we will serve, they will bring trillions to the economy. And in my belief, the Viksit Bharat, the developed India dream, is going to be possible because small will become big or beautiful, as we expected it to be.
