Founder and CEO of Hirebeen, Dheeraj Srivastava, said the India AI Impact Summit 2026 comes at a critical moment for India to define its role in the rapidly evolving global artificial intelligence landscape.
Speaking at the summit, Srivastava said the influence of AI has expanded sharply over the past five years, making it an opportune time for India to assess how it can contribute meaningfully to the global AI race.
“In the last five years, AI impact has risen globally. This is a good time for India to understand how we can contribute to this race,” he said.
Highlighting the importance of technological self-reliance, Srivastava said Hirebeen is working towards building sovereign large language models (LLMs), in line with national efforts to strengthen indigenous AI capabilities.
“We are working towards building sovereign LLMs. Here I am, looking forward to listening to many views and the focus of the government towards the future,” he added.
Earlier, Saahil Goel, Managing Director and CEO of Shiprocket, said that while the platform has enabled more than four lakh businesses to go online, nearly 60 million MSMEs in India are yet to be integrated into the digital economy.
Speaking to ANI on the sidelines of the summit, Goel said the true potential of AI lies in expanding access across the country.
“Shiprocket has powered over four lakh businesses to go online so far, and there are still 60 million MSMEs in India that remain. The real power is in creating access. If a person in Guwahati wants to sell to a person in Kashmir, they should be able to do it in a matter of minutes,” he said.
Goel said this could be achieved through AI-enabled tools such as voice-based interfaces and unstructured business models that are now viable due to advances in artificial intelligence.
He stressed the need for India-specific AI development to ensure technological sovereignty, suggesting that datasets from marketplaces, logistics firms, payment companies and e-commerce platforms be combined into shared data pools.
“One thing is to adopt AI, which is what we’re doing right now, but really we need to create AI for Indian use cases and Indian businesses and Indian consumers,” Goel said, advocating interoperable API stacks and shared data signals to address challenges such as customer blacklisting due to poor return behaviour.
The India AI Impact Expo 2026 is being held from February 16 to 20 alongside the India AI Impact Summit at Bharat Mandapam. The Expo is positioned as a national showcase of AI in action, bringing together policy, innovation and real-world applications.
Spread across 10 arenas covering more than 70,000 square metres, the Expo features participation from global technology companies, startups, academia and research institutions, Union Ministries, State Governments and international partners. It includes 13 country pavilions representing Australia, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Serbia, Estonia, Tajikistan and Africa.
(ANI)
