Why AI is 10x Bigger Than the Internet ? | Rajesh Jain | Netcore Cloud

0:00 AI impact I think is going to be far far bigger uh because it's going to impact or it's already started impacting every person every business every industry that brands will have twins for each of their best customers and I believe the one thing which will never go away is the value and importance of human attention any tasks which involve human judgment human interaction I don't think AI is going to replace any of those things I you know if you read with AI you can find topics where you read something you can delve into them with greater depth you know there are layoffs which are happening in companies graduates are not able to get jobs they will all have to adopt they will have to unlearn and relearn very very quickly AI is your ally [music] AI can help you become what most CMOs don't CEOs >> hello and welcome to this very special interaction that we are having on free press journal. I'm joined today by Rajes GN who is among the foremost tech entrepreneurs of India right now. He is the MD and founder of a netcore cloud and we're going to talk about uh AI with him. Exactly what the direction is for India when you talk about AI what should India do or for the matter of fact what should you and I do when you talk about AI and how should we perceive this sort of a sea of change that we are going through day in and day out. Thank you so much Mr. Jen for being a part of this conversation.

1:32 >> Thank you Shannon. Yeah and like I said that uh you're among the foremost tech entrepreneurs of India and let me go back to uh the year 1995 that is when you launched uh India world and this is at a time when India or we did not even hear about emails we did not we were just dabbling into internet sort of a thing and today you are actually talking about AI agents you know what a sea of change over the last two to three decades so I wanted to understand do you feel This moment is like a '90s.com boom that we are seeing or we are in for something very different altogether and we should brace ourselves for it.

2:12 >> See both the internet and what we are seeing now with AI are what one can think of as generational technologies. Probably the AI boom or the AI impact I think is going to be far far bigger uh because it's going to impact or it's already has started impacting every person, every business, every industry. U so when we think about the way the internet was it really was a pre- internet era and a post internet era and it changed a lot of our lives in different ways it bridged the world bridge distances um and it made available lots of new services I mean from searching for information from Google to social networks uh to Netflix all of these things are now possible purely because of the internet and I think in the same way AI is going to create a whole range of new techn new sort of subtechnologies and industries as we go forward. Agents are just one part of it. We are just about if you think about it just three years three and a half years in the AI boom or the AI era that we know of. So I think this is going to be very exciting times.

3:19 These are what I look at as the first generation of technologies. The real power comes from the second derivative, third derivative. Mhm. >> Um you know what when people start combining technologies when AI essentially becomes recursive when AI improves itself >> and you haven't even imagined that yet. >> In fact, I'll get to that point in a short while from now because this is something that I would also want to know and I'm sure our audience also will want to understand a bit more about. But you had this legendary 115 million uh dollar exit at that point in time of your business. You've gone ahead and you've built netcore cloud right at this point in time and it's a global giant right yet you find time to blog I believe every single day correct me if I'm wrong so I want to understand that what about this agentic future is that is keeping you so hungry just like a 25year-old who just came back from Colombian university in 1992 tell me if I got the age right the year right and everything right you've done your [laughter] homework >> I've done my homework So I like to look at problems to solve.

4:24 See as any entrepreneur does. >> What are the big problems that one can solve? So in 1995 when I started India world which was India's first internet portal the problem was that how do you connect Indians worldwide with information news >> stock market updates cricket scores Amadra comics etc on a near instantaneous basis. You could bridge distances. You didn't need to worry about where you were to get the cricket scores for example to get Indian recipes. That's what the internet enabled and for me I it was a problem I had lived through when I was in the US wanting to come back to India.

5:01 Today if you see when I look at AI and netcore sort of lens is really the world of marketing uh digital marketing especially the retention side of marketing or existing customers. How can brands build better relationships with them? My belief is that the big problem today is what I term as ad waste. Ad waste is when brands spend money again and again retargeting and reacquiring us as customers.

5:31 So not every acquisition is acquiring a net new customer. We engage with brands then we become dormant. We sort of move away. So I have this framework called best rest and next. So we are best customers for some time then maybe we drift away we become the rest and then the rest a lot of the rest are reacquired as next and this next is where your brands are paying to add tech platforms >> and that is actually waste because someone walked into your store you as a brand probably didn't build a better deeper relationship with them then they went out and you're paying again to get them back in a way you're renting your own customers rather than owning the relationship with them and in my estimate this is 70% of global digital advertising. So global digital advertising is 700 billion. This according to me is a $500 billion ad waste problem. And I think it's the greatest opportunity. And why does this happen? It's because marketers are not able to send us the right messages at the right time uh on the right channel. And this is where I think AI is going to be absolutely transformative.

6:46 >> So instead of thinking about us as part of a large cohort, marketers can engage with us at a onetoone basis. What's called N is equal to one onetoone personalization. So that's what excites me. Big problems to solve and as entrepreneurs I think of course the odds of success in many new ideas are not very high but the journey is exciting. Of course it's exciting because at this what happens is along with the way how the world is progressing you are constantly thinking on how to actually go ahead and improvise or skill or reskill yourself and uh you've come out of with a very interesting report right and uh I believe netcore has come out with that report and the report is full of data one I would like you to touch a bit about uh the report with us and as a visionary I want to understand what is it that the data is not telling us what you feel what in your gut you feel that could likely happen in the next two years. So the report uh you mentioned is on 2026 agentic AI predictions um got I think six predictions in there very interesting ones the one which I am most excited about um is I think what you'll see in the next couple of years are that brands will have twins for each of their best customers >> okay >> so based on our interactions with them >> they'll be able to create a sort of replica of us and then be able to send us more relevant information. See today all this is there but it's very difficult for humans to sort of analyze all of this especially in real time when you're on a website or on an app.

8:32 >> So usually what happens also is that when you get these ads or you know you get these mailers and stuff from these brands usually it is like oneizefits all sort of a thought process that is going in and I think that's where you're coming out. You are absolutely right that the challenge is today that's let's say a brand has 10 million customers >> they can maybe create 8 10 segments >> right >> because for every segment you have to create content every day you got to create new campaigns then you got to analyze them and then it's the next day repeat the whole process again this is what's going to get transformed at two levels one is there will be marketing agents so the marketing department will have agents an insights agent, a segmentation agent, a content agent, an analytics agent like the insights agent, a shopping agent to help customers. A lot of these agents will make life easier and then customers themselves will have twins like today Tesla has a twin of every car.

9:35 >> It can use it for predictive maintenance know when the car has any challenges. GE has a twin for every engine uh that it sells. And in fact that engine now has helped GE transform its sales its pricing model on engines. Earlier you had to buy these engines for tens of millions of dollars. Now G can price on air miles flown by the engine outcomes not on inputs. I think similar transformation will happen what AI will drive in marketing. So I always look at that when you whenever you think about AI look at two tracks. One is faster, better, cheaper. So how can AI help you become more efficient in what you are doing even at an individual level or at a corporate level.

10:23 >> The second is what are the things that AI can help you solve which are impossible today. So for example in marketing today creating 500 segments of 10 million customers is impossible. But an AI agent can help create these 500 segments, create content for each of these segments every day, analyze what's happened, and then tell you what better to do the next day. So these are the impossible problems which no amount of resources can help us can help marketing team solve. And that's the exciting future.

10:58 The faster, better, cheaper, incrementally better is one. But the disruptive future is going to be imagining things that you just cannot do today which you can do with the help of AI. >> And that brings me to the next question is the fact that for the last 25 years what we've done is we've searched on the internet. That is what we've done right. We we're so used to looking up for things on internet uh sort of thing. You are predicting and correct me if I'm wrong a massive surge of multi- aent system which you just explained to us about it. Uh tell me something will that take away my joy of going ahead and shopping and you know searching for things and everything is that going to be the way I was going to be going ahead because yeah we're going to get so used to uh these AI agents doing this for us somewhere this human touch and the likeness of doing this goes away right >> I don't think so because see if you look back during the pandemic four five years ago We all there was a big shift in big jump in online. Look today the offline stores are as crowded as ever. More of them coming up. In fact every online brand if it has to scale has to think of >> right >> opening offline. I think we all still treasure the real world experience. But what AI will take away are the frictions which are there. the frictions where you get irrelevant information where the AI perhaps doesn't know your size very well and therefore you don't know what to buy and there's a problem of returns which is a big big challenge in the industry a lot of these things will go away so when you think about it the one question you know I always like to ask is when new technologies come is of course what will change but also what will not change and I believe the one thing which will never go away is the value and importance of human attention.

13:02 So while the brands and other platforms wanting to reach out to you can get to your twin or your agent >> exactly >> at the end of the day the person deciding where the money was going to get spent. The person who has the emotions who can respond to exciting uh content micro dramas or whatever else is you not your agent. >> Yeah that's true. You want to learn, you want a better life. Okay. So, I think brands who can tap into some of those things. Get past the agent. The agent will be a gatekeeper. It'll filter what's coming into your inboxes. Okay.

13:35 I'll tell you these are the important messages for you to see. But you also, the agent, you as a person will also want to maybe get to some things which are experiential rather than factual. Your agent can track the deliveries and all of those things, but you want to learn new things also. Gamification for example, all of those fun things which are not done today for attention, I think are going to become even more valuable. >> Right. And talking about attention, you've also noted something very interesting uh that uh that our attention span is now 8 seconds >> which is even shorter than a gold goldfish, right?

14:17 >> Yes. So tell me about this that do you see this sort of a behavior changing now going ahead because like you said maybe uh also g gamification could be a part of it right that is also going to help in making sure that you are more attentive to things you are spending more time you are having more focus on thing but that on the flip side also the fact that if you have so much of AI intervention that is happening day in and day out. You tend to not focus on things that much as much as you would, right? Because the that time that you spend on reading has gone away. The time that you spend on research has gone away. Now all you do you put it's all about the right prompt you put and you get the right prompt and there you get your research all out there. So how how do you think that this will change or this is the set norm that we have to be okay with 8 seconds is your attention span. No, see I think the way you've got to look at this is that today you can ask anything to a claude or a geminy or a or a chat GBT you get lots of things but you still have to consume those things >> if you want to become better so if I'm writing when I'm writing my blog okay I can today the AIS have literally infinite memory I may have forgotten ideas which I may have written about in the past but whatever it writes I still have to make read before I put it out. Of course, another AI agent could technically do that. But and it's it's going to happen. But if we want to become better, see, there's a human.

15:52 Okay, there are some things which machines can do. Coding machines can do. But any tasks which involve human judgment, human interaction, I don't think AI is going to replace any of those things. So this is where I think the exciting opportunity comes for businesses, for brands. So how is it that you can get human attention? Can you get it for more than the 8 seconds? Can you have magnets? I I turn these as magnets, attractors in the messages that you're sending out. Today when we get a lot of incoming messages, we are bombarded with all of them. Most of them because what you said earlier, they're all generic. They're all broadcast. They are meant for a large segment. They are not for us. But instead of just saying that um come and visit XY Z coffee shop, what if what if it could tell you, hi Sher, your 855 cappuccino is ready waiting for you and here are some um loyalty points if you buy it before 9:00 because it's tracked your behavior. Yes, >> it can send you a very relevant message.

17:05 And if it's raining, it could even adapt that message because it can track weather in real time. And if it's morning, afternoon, evening, the tone of the message could be different. Weekend to a weekday could be different. Humans cannot do this thing. So that's where this idea of can brands build twins >> of their best customers. So what digital twins have been around for a long time but they've been twins of physical objects >> but now you can create twins of individuals >> individuals >> and that's I think where it's a very different future so the more data that they collect on us the more what is called zero party data the data that we voluntarily give to them it's a value exchange give me something >> if I was going to ask you about that the fact that you know this entire sharing of data is a very gray area right because you are so scared of your privacy So they have brands have to make it a value exchange >> now. Why will I give data to someone >> voluntarily? Because today otherwise it's almost like stalking. They're tracking what we are clicking on and then trying to figure out what our intent is.

18:10 >> And for example, after our conversation, I'm sure I'm going to get all AI pop-ups on my phone given the fact that is already listening to us. [laughter] >> Probably not there yet. >> No, we're not there yet. Oh, great. But but I think where this works is that if we can expect better personalization >> you go to an amazon.com you go to a nika.com you go to there are zillions of products out there today we are sort of searching hunting they are trying to figure out our intent >> but if you can communicate in natural language so at one of our company's uh unboxed uh divisions in netcore um we have a shopping agent you can talk in natural language.

18:53 I'm going for a party. Here is what I would like to uh wear and then it will interpret that rather than you just giving keywords. So tomorrow you could just click a picture of something and then say show me items like this. So image search. So that's the key thing to think that what are the frictions which are there today which prevent transactions from being completed. items left in the shopping cart, messages unread.

19:25 Now, if they were personalized, if they were perhaps even filtered through your twin, >> we're saying what would you ask Cheryl and there's a Cheryl twin? So, a brand could basically ask a Cheryl twin before sending to Cheryl saying, "Hey, out of these three offers or let's say would Cheryl like buy one get one free or 50% off." It makes it more relevant. It makes it more likely that you will act on it. It's a lot. So all these inefficiencies which are there because of lack of data, lack of analytical capabilities, because the computing costs are high because of the human in the loop who has to clear every campaign.

20:03 This is where I think we'll see the world of agents agentic AI twins are another sort of agents >> uh which are there in the real in the in in in for every every brand I think need to think about these kinds of ideas beyond just the simple ones obvious ones of content creation um u um image generation video generation I think the real opportunity is that for the first time we have the ability to personalize every engagement at an individual level for that particular moment.

20:36 >> Brilliant. You know, you at the starting of the conversation, you did talk about the stages that we are in when you talk about the AI adaptation right now. Just for our viewers who are watching it, for someone who's trying to grasp what is happening in AI, there's not been a single day or a week where we've not had headlines and we've not seen the global markets being punctured because of it. we've not seen the the companies actually sweated out because of uh these announcements. So just for basic for people to understand what is an agentic AI, what is generative AI? What what is it that like what is it that you should be wary of? Where you think AI can be a friend, a supporter, a partner and where you think AI is here to be a disruptor to make you really struggle it out and adapt and actually make sure you are you got your skin in the game.

21:30 >> Okay. So let's take a simple example. Say you are an analyst, >> a stock market analyst. >> Today you get all these reports come from companies >> which you have to analyze. What generative AI can actually do for you is go through all of these reports. It can figure out what the important ideas are in there. What questions you should be asking maybe at the analyst meeting that's there. It can compare uh with past numbers. It can do this what sort of a junior level person in your in an org organization would do. It can do that far more efficiently because it can essentially um the text and the image generation capabilities image here would be used for say charts etc. And we've all seen this with chat GBD and with claude and with geminy all the primary models that we using today.

22:21 >> Now where does agent tick come in? Now imagine that you wanted to create something on your computer um which can go out every day fetch zillions of stock prices u put them into a spreadsheet look at real world events that are happening um understand the importance of those events which industries can get impacted uh on a lot of those things something which is running in your browser perhaps but doing a lot of work for you almost a co-intelligence that's out there almost like a clone of you in that sense. It's an agent. It's a co-pilot. There are various words for it. I think the word I like is co-intelligence out there. This is where agents and there'll be different types of agents.

23:10 So in in insights agent for example in in marketing can actually go through all the campaigns that you did last week. It can figure out the performance of each campaign. >> It can also give you an analysis of why a particular campaign worked better than another campaign and then tell you what you should be doing next. Now this typically a human doing it would take maybe four five hours on a Monday morning. Now this can be done in 5 minutes. So it makes the human that much more productive. It gets rid of some of the grunt work that's happening.

23:46 Now the human being can actually spend time thinking on what else is there out here. What are the in how can I leverage the insights because there is still a a real world experiential learning which every person has which they can bring into play. So the higher order tasks now get more time rather than the uh sort of labor intensive tasks which are there. So this is I think where the agentic world is going to get very powerful or very very very exciting like today for coding for example about half the agents deployed so far have all been in in in software engineering >> in coding so when you're creating a new project you can actually what's called wipe coding you can wipe code it up very quickly >> um so for example uh just a few days ago we said you know what would a prediction market with play money look like um you know like poly market, kalshi >> are now becoming very interesting in times of breaking news and all kinds of interesting events which are happening and we all sort of take bets in some ways. You know we like to predict who will win the match today evening and so on but how is it that to create it would have taken engineering team maybe a few uh weeks writing the specs getting it vetted and all of this thing. This now can be done in a matter of few hours >> right >> with with with coding platforms.

25:18 >> Exactly. >> So that's so the ability to experiment the ability to try out new things I think becomes u much more easier. Of course the questions is how how do people then adapt to it? I mean obviously when there's an agent a coder is doing less work. >> So that is that is obviously now impacting in some of the new hires for example in software engineering. But that's the way the world works. We had buggy drivers once and then the uh cars came. So >> humans have been very good at adapting through all these thousands of years.

25:49 >> Exactly. And also you know I don't know if I if what my analysis also is correct in this you can correct me if I'm wrong or you can actually supplement to that is the fact that you know uh you have many other portals right now like you were talking about it that where you can create an app for yourself you can create these agents for yourself in a matter of hours in that way what also happens is it's ma keeping you busy it is making sure that you are learning something new with something that you couldn't wouldn't have tapped into right for someone who is into a journalism field or who's been doing news reporting for someone like me to go and tap into an arena which I thought would only a software engineer could do it or only coders could do it I think that sort of demarcation or that sort of a boundary is now blurred totally right >> absolutely for example simple task of reading a book >> now I know your 8 seconds point was absolutely there so you're all writing reading a lot less books Yes, >> but the reading process can now be made very interesting with AIS. I you know if you read with AI you can find topics where you read something you can delve into them with greater depth. Find other books which are similar. Have books summarized. Many books are basically you know one chapter which is really expanded into 200 pages.

27:11 >> You can get the gist of an idea much faster. I think you can correlate ideas across books in a much better manner. So my belief is that the the ability for all of us to get more from the information that is out there, you know, convert sort of the information out there into knowledge and perhaps even wisdom. I think that is going to get accelerated. But going back to the point you said very early on, what is required for this? I think education is very critical.

27:44 the ability to to have a good well-grounded education across multiple disciplines, the ability to think, the ability to ask questions. I think answers are there, but who's who's doing the prompting? Who's asking the questions? >> That I think becomes very very important. So in every era, there are some things which will change, some things which will not change. I think here the the asking questions I think is is is going to become very very important. Different questions will get you different answers.

28:16 >> Absolutely. In fact, you know, we've had so much we've heard about this entire debate about millennials and Gen Z and Gen Alpha and all the generations. But to be very honest, I have seen the younger generation now actually ask questions. They are they are using so much of AI day in and day out but they ask questions and that is very interesting because which means that you also have to keep up with the pace. You can't be you can't take it for granted that you have an AI to help you out.

28:50 >> It's a great point. when we were growing up, at least when I was growing up, um um you are one of the other [laughter] ones that you said. Um um you know, how many times would we ask questions in class? >> Exactly. >> Now, >> I think that is similar because it it was a similar sort of a thing, right? I think that entire generation that this shift that has happened and where we have our internet and we have all the memes talk about the entire debate about millennials and everything. I think that entire generation was also much more like the boomers were that they would not ask question.

29:28 >> See every gener every new technology which comes we all learn to adapt. >> I mean if you look back 10 15 years ago you know the the apps on our phone today you know when you're doing exercise you have a straa or some equivalent app like this guiding you. You don't neily need a gym trainer for example. So lots of these things which were earlier perhaps not possible to do >> are becoming easier now and we will all adapt to these changes. We had the landline phones in one era. You no one no one could be no one was reachable 24 by7. Now we all are you have you friends who were not connected are all today on WhatsApp groups. So this is where I think it's exciting. Um I mean that the the what's what's changed now is the pace of change.

30:19 >> H right actually yeah >> in fact the analogy is today we are we are on 5G it took 30 years for five generations of telecom we are on chat GBD 5.2 5.3 I think is coming >> all in the matter of probably four or five years. So here in tech now in AI at least one generation and a generation is three times five times better uh the cost of tokens falls by 70 to 80% a year compounded over 3 four years it's a fraction of what we were paying maybe 3 years ago and that opens up a whole new vista so I think it's it's very exciting times but what it also requires is what are the problems if you're an entrepreneur out there what are the problems can I solve with these technologies don't worry about the technology, find focus on the problem.

31:13 >> Exactly. Rather than thinking that it is going to be a disruptor and how it's going to disrupt, actually you should think about solutions for that disruption >> and and adopt it. Use it. >> Adopt it. Yeah. >> Use it for your day-to-day work. Okay? I mean, get the paid versions of these. It's $20 a month. >> Don't stick with the free version. There's a world of difference between the free and the paid versions. >> And start experimenting it. That's the best way um to learn. uh try out the coding platforms which are there you know because you can now just give prompts and you see in five minutes a clawed code will create uh something you want to learn blackjack you can get a blackjack player whom you can play with I mean all kinds of things are possible today >> exactly >> so which earlier were not possible this is where I look at the impossible play yeah it can make your writing more efficient faster all of these things but what are the impossible things that you earlier could not do at an individual level and your at your work level um in your your team which now and with with with products that you're creating that today make that that are possible. So what are the problems or the frictions the whole world moves in that direction.

32:19 So basically if you have to divide your day you know at one point in time you had these 8 to 9 hours working then you have your sleep time about of 7 hours and then what do you have your free time people would say either you play a sport have a hobby or you have reading now you think you it is a must that you give a dedicated at least an hour to understanding AI and to learning it >> absolutely so see I think it's very critical today because this is going to impact white collar of work.

32:50 >> See all previous technologies have been primarily machines. This is a thinking machine, right? >> Very interesting actually. Very interesting. >> So yes, >> earlier it was all about blue collar work etc. didn't impact people like us. >> Yes. >> Today we are the impacted ones. You know there are layoffs which are happening in companies. Graduates are not able to get jobs. They will all have to adopt. They will have to unlearn and relearn very very quickly. Mhm.

33:18 >> every new o over a period of time there will always be more jobs and possibly more free time. Okay. But the same jobs are not going to be around. I mean this is the the this is the uh if actually one studies tech history you will see this happening through the last 200 300 years when we really had since the industrial revolution we have transformations but for the first time we are all worried because it's impacting people like us.

33:46 >> Yes. Exactly. and talking about uh impacting people like us in uh your report you've actually calling for the end of the CMO role right >> a transformation a change >> a change yes so you saying it should be replaced by chief profits officer yeah it's a though it sounds very controversial very bold but I think is is that because you think that now what is happening is you spoke about the ad waste do you think that marketing has just become a vanity matrix now >> see marketers primarily have focused on revenue growth, >> right?

34:20 >> So now if you want more clicks coming in, >> spend more money on adtech and you'll get more clicks. >> The challenge is that today the cost of these clicks, what is in called the CAC, the customer acquisition cost, customer acquisition cost goes up year after year. Today the only lever that a business has a B2C D2C business has to actually improve profitability is what they are spending on marketing and in that the big lever is what they are wasting on reacquiring existing customers. Now the CMO historically has never bothered about profitability. It's been growth, revenue, get the clicks in.

35:07 And that is I think and my belief is that's why very few CMOs actually become CEOs. >> You have the operations, the finance person, the tech person, they all become CEOs, but very few CMOs make it to CEOs. And if if CMOs have to get to the corner office, become CEOs, I think this is a phenomenal opportunity for them. They have to become chief AI officers and chief profit officers. They have to take control of the profitability which actually they can do by eliminating the ad waste. You eliminate ad waste, you're going to impact uh margins by by 10% of revenue.

35:46 You are really the chief profits architect of the company. But you want to change your mindset. AI is your ally. AI can help you become what most CMOs don't CEOs >> very interesting actually that entire take and I think that entire mindset of best rest and next has to go away and the focus should be on profitability at least for the companies that's why CMOs uh uh should target but if I talk about your company netcore it's actually pushing for outcomebased pricing that is pay for results isn't is that what the concept is is not just for software pay for the results.

36:27 >> What does it mean for the traditional SAS players if this is going to be the thought process and why? >> So if you've seen in the last few months >> uh there's been a lot of discussion on what happens to SAS companies, software companies, even IT services companies. >> Now my belief is that a lot of software through the years has largely been priced especially in SAS companies been priced on inputs. So in mk >> marketing tech we sell based on monthly active users monthly transacting users or number of messages sent but they are all inputs we don't take ownership on outcomes and that is I think the shift which SAS companies have to take up with the G example it's not selling the engine it's ownership responsibility and compensation linked to air miles flown by the engine. So can I deliver higher revenue when we sell the software today when we sell mk software most marketing teams use 35 40% of the features of the platform because people come in and change you know um sometimes the the platform can do a lot but there are limitations on what how they are using them you know in a way I have the analogy we are selling a Ferrari but the driver is a Mumbai taxi driver okay so now how do change this if we can have if software companies I think will need to have skin in the game and that's the idea of outcome based pricing so to borrow a phrase from from the world of portfolio management or hedge funds it's the alpha price it based on the alpha that you will be able to deliver so the baseline is not zero the baseline is what the marketing teams would have done anyways alpha is what the sellers, software sellers, the martekch vendors all have to help deliver with their agents, in some cases with humans, definitely with agents and then take a carry a percentage of the upside that is generated. This creates unlimited opportunities I think for software companies to move away from the traditional model of seats based subscription based type of pricing or messages sent pricing and I think makes them as core to the business and CMOs I think who can work with with their vendors and this works across disciplines. It's not just in martekch I think become basically profit profitability drivers of the business.

39:10 >> Exactly. So basically this this could be the partner for the CMO for actually making sure that the CMO then ends up becoming a CEO. >> You're right. It's not a vendor. It's a partner relationship. >> It's a partner relationship. That's what it is. You know, let's talk about India and let's talk about this entire AI that revolution that is taking place. If you talk about India's history, we've skipped land landline phones for mobile phones. There's there's an entire shift where he skipped some of them have actually skipped credit cards for UPI payments directly. We've had a lot of debate a lot of you know talks about how India is missing out in the AI race. Do you think that India this time is trying to skip the basic AI race and in fact go ahead and actually dominate the agentic AI route or has some other cards left in it? I I think the prerequisite here is education and I think we have had significant challenges with the education system in India as compared to say the East Asian neighbors. You look at China, you look at South Korea, I think prosperity has been very high because they invested a lot in education in India. I think the education investments have been a have been a I think below par through the decades. I think I think what needs to happen is AI in fact can help with the education part also today. AI can help personalize or individualize the education that's there. So today there's a class of 50 or 50 students. Some people study at we all learn at different rates. AI can actually help with that.

40:48 So but more important is if if the education quality is improved I think only then what we said earlier the point about asking questions coding >> okay or even overseeing the coder coding agent you will need an educated human at the at the top >> at the top >> so that I think is very critical it's a great opportunity for India I think we all tend to think in very sort of short-term time frames when we get worried about headlines which are there of oh this company's laid off so many people uh this person I know my mama's uh son or daughter is unable to get a job after graduating from a US university all these stories are starting to come out >> but at the end of the day this is with any new invention any new technology these things are always all going to happen so but what needs to happen in India is I think we have to dramatically ally increase investments in education.

41:50 Treat AI as just another subject which has to be which has to be taught at early years. Get people encourage people to start using it because and so the I think the the point thing you pointed out earlier it will make people ask questions they may feel afraid to ask the question in the class >> but no one's afraid to ask AI the question and that's how you learn. We all learn by asking questions. You look at kids.

42:20 We all just questions questions questions all the time. >> It never ends. >> Yeah. They have thousands of questions and then by the time we grow up we are so scared to ask questions even in meeting rooms. That is what has to change. >> Exactly. So you wouldn't want to say that we've missed the bus when you talk about >> see I think >> AI >> way I look at it is that there are generations. We've missed the sort of foundational models. I don't think we can build foundational models out here.

42:46 >> Um and we can of course there are efforts to build models. Uh companies like server etc are doing a very good job I think especially with the languages element coming in but at the same time look at the applications look at the second order and third order impact that AI can have and can we build those applications going forward. Can we take the big problems marketing I explained earlier the adbase problem you need AI agents marketing agents you need AI twins now there we are on level playing field with everyone else in the world because the application area level possibly even in um in uh in robots humanoids you see all these wonderful videos of robots dancing and so on interacting with other people I think we have a phenomenal depth in science and tech education manufacturing uh uh I know we need labor intensive manufacturing but that's there for some areas >> but if we have to drive manufacturing in India you have to imagine AI le manufacturing what is that going to look like so we've see this is a given whether India or people in India like it or not this change is coming and it is going to have a huge impact >> and this is not just uh sort of limited to only certain sectors that everyone's talking about only it and that's the only sector like you said >> healthare, agriculture, everyone and you see the smart stories already coming out >> right >> today of how people are helping. So what has to happen is these have to get more democratized over time and that will always be there. There'll be the early adopters then there will be the sort of lagards who will finally wake up at some point of time. But this is the way life works with any any new technology.

44:29 Everyone didn't adopt the mobile phone the day it came out where the pricing was high. But as the top of the pyramid starts using it, prices start falling. >> Yes. >> Look at the price of AI tokens and all of these things. So that's exciting times. I think it's it's a great time because um uh there are the problems if you start with the problems which are there the frictions which are there I think then as an entrepreneur okay it's a great time to be alive because you have now various mechanisms >> to actually solve problems not just in India but maybe globally some of these challenges are there everywhere else in the world >> exactly so let's talk about you in particular You've been blogging at Rajesen.com for years, right? I believe in that tool almost every day.

45:20 >> Yeah, >> almost every day. And this is an era where everyone's using all the possible AI tools for their content. You've still managed to keep that manual human touch for that and someone who is also so much involved in what exactly is happening in the field of AI. Isn't it contradictory or is it is it like why how how do you write? >> So two things I write and I've been writing since 2000 except for a few years in between which I had stopped. Um but I write because it helps me think better.

45:55 >> I'm not worried about um vanity metrics of likes or any of those things or how many people read. The discipline of writing makes me think, makes me read, makes me watch and listen. So, it's a great way of self-improvement because when you're writing, you have to clarify the ideas in your own head and then I have to put it down. So, until probably a year ago, a lot of the writing was me. Every word is written by me. What's changed in the last year is I use AI to help with a lot of the writing. And what I've discovered is what AI is now because it's got the library of all my past writing. So it knows how I think and all of and it's got sort of infinite memory. It's helping come up with new ideas to make what I'm thinking better.

46:47 So this discipline I think of reading, writing, thinking now with inputs from AI I think is extremely good like a lot of the ideas now which I put out on my blog and I'm very open with a lot of these ideas what we've discussed most of those are all all are there in fact to be found on my blog. I get AI to write stories. So how will lives change if these ideas come to life? And it's actually fascinating to read those stories because it you know I I could have imagined some parts of it but there full day in the life of someone with the with the new ideas that we've just spoken about and then I get geminy to actually create images not yet videos >> to bring those screens to life as it were. So AI has now become a exactly what I said earlier. It's like a co-intelligence like I have someone whom I can brainstorm with who never forgets who's got the knowledge base of the sort of full universe as it were. Um and it just makes me think better faster and I think everyone should be doing this.

47:57 >> Exactly. Everyone should be doing this. And you also spoke about the fact that how you should now dedicate at least an hour in your day to actually go ahead and understand, learn and try to sort of see how these AI tools can help you become better and more productive actually at the end of the day. So Mr. Then if we have another conversation in this year, we were just at the beginning of 2026 and by the time we actually meet once again in this year and some of your predictions do come true, will the average life on Indian be more cluttered or do you think it will be more free, more relaxed with all the uh AI adoption that is taking place and I think it's not going to stop anytime soon or But also apart from that I wanted to know from you what is the one thing that you hope the AI does not take away from from the human lives in total because right now the conversation that we've had we've spoken about there being an AI agent or a digital twin of of me for the matter of fact and how it will make my life easy. have already been thinking about it but the point is what is that one thing that you think remains should remain untouched >> so take the first part >> see essentially I think in a year's time when you look back I think there will be see there'll be some changes which are expected some which are perhaps unexpected so I'll give you a simple example um there was something called open claw which came out few weeks ago um and it could basically handle your WhatsApp account, email account and all of these things >> must say we've dabbled into it also.

49:40 Yeah, >> I mean there a lot of security issues but they will all get solved. I mean they're all um like cloud co is there now which is which helps on the with some of the stuff which you're doing on your own computer. >> Uh some of the Chinese models like Quinn from Alibaba are just phenomenal. >> I mean they are basically like what the public models were with capabilities about maybe a year ago. They now you can deploy those on your own computer on your own laptop or desktop. So you don't even have to pay the the token costs as it were. You can just operate it locally. So all of these things are happening. But I think the key in all of this is really if I if I just narrow the lens a little bit um on the marketing side because that's a world I know much better than maybe other words. My belief is that if if CMOs and they are the agents of change really out here, the human agents of change as opposed to the AI agents of change can use AI. um if they can start taking up ownership on profitability, I think it'll transform balance sheets, P&Ls of almost every B2C, D2C company because of that waste component that is today hidden and that money can now go into R&D into more innovation and all kinds of other things. Today that's just going away as a transfer to someone else's balance sheet. the ad tech platforms >> that money is really genuinely yours.

51:02 You can now improve your own customer experiences and that's a big amount. That's the only controllable uh variable really monetary variable that they have. So that I think would be very exciting to see uh happen. Um on the one one thing u uh I think instead of worrying about the negative effects of AI um I think what we have to start thinking about is what are the opportunities it creates for all of us in our work in our lives maybe even changing professions you know but these are this is an exa inexorable force of change and I'm one of the lucky ones who lived through the internet era. I was an entrepreneur at that time. I benefited from that time. That time I was a disruptor.

51:58 >> This time in a way I'm an incumbent. >> So I have to also bring about change in my organization with many of these things. But these are very exciting times and this is typically I have this kuma theory of technology. uh every 12 years there is some breakthrough tech which comes. If you go back in the 50s to 60s, you know, there were the main frames in the ' 50s, minis in the ' 60s, '70s, early '7s, you had the chip, the semi the silicon chip. Early 80s, you had the computer. 1994, '95 you had the internet. Um 2007, you had the smartphone. I think AI started happening around 201920.

52:38 >> Okay, so it's going to be there. Uh there'll be something else which will come up. I mean we have you have Elon Musk talking of data centers in space. So I mean let the mind free. Imagine you know new versions of the future. Uh I think CK Prolad said you know in his book competing for the future. A competition is about you know different people's versions of the future or imaginations of the future and who can bring those to life. And I think uh I always talk about that every person who's working today should think of being an entrepreneur.

53:10 And I think uh you will have companies with one individual, one human and an army of agents. You're already going to see some of these happen. And uh these are exciting times. I mean time of great change. Um but let's use this in a instead of trying to regulate it or trying to put limits on it or constraints on it. I think we have to think of the problems which are there whether it's in education, whether it's in healthcare, uh whether it's in agriculture. I mean we have all sitting on lots of problems. So that is where I think leap frog opportunity is immense.

53:43 >> Exactly. >> So for me how do you educate you know 25 million kids who are getting into the education system every year and give them a good quality education so they can live their best make the best version of themselves. I think that's where we should be thinking about how you can democratize the AI um which I think can be used for real betterment >> of our life because these are the people who build the innovations for tomorrow.

54:11 Educate them well and let them lose on AI. >> Brilliant. It it's been such a interesting conversation that we've had Mr. Jen because uh apart from your views on the entire AI the way how the world is changing how we should actually look at them as partners there are multiple words that have I take back from the conversation like vanity matrix you spoke about co-intelligence uh also you spoke about the kuma effect as well so it's very interesting conversation but one last bit I want from you for our viewers who are watching this and the fact that we are now inundated when you talk about AI applications. What is it that you one should actually look out for at this point in time or try to experiment at this point in time like your tips or your AI tools that you use?

55:05 >> Get the paid versions first. >> Firstly, okay, >> it's $20 a month and there are cheaper versions available but get the maybe the $20 uh version. I think Claude and sorry, OpenAI and all have cheaper versions. is maybe 2,000 rupees a month. I think it's maybe three or four coffees or whatever coffees plus meals is the best investment that you can make for yourself. Do not wait for your organization to get a corporate subscription and give it to you. You are investing in your own future. But that's the first step. Then it's the part which you also brought up. Spend time with these things. Today they are not just your writing assistants. They can be your coding assistants. Okay? They can do a lot of things for you. So make use of this. Let your mind free.

55:49 >> Yeah. Exactly. And the point is know when we use these AI tools, you're so fixated on the fact that can you clean up the grammar? Can you check the spelling? Do you think this email is right? I want to write an email. And we are so we tend to use AI only for that sort of. >> You're absolutely right. You have to think beyond that. >> Beyond and like you said, you have to think about different versions of future and what future you want and maybe you can start applying think about the problems and then you have the solutions. No, absolutely. So think without constraints.

56:18 >> Yes. >> All of us have I've always believed I wrote a book startup to proficon on entrepreneurship. U all of us have an entrepreneur inside us. I think what AI lets us do is unleash that entrepreneur. Entrepreneur solves problems. Find problems around you. This is the best wealth creation opportunity we will get in our lifetimes. On that note, thank you so much Mr. Jen. It was interesting conversation like I said and I've said it repeatedly in our conversation. It's been an interesting conversation but yes I will have to wind it down otherwise I think we will go on and on and it may become a longish two to three hour podcast but thank you so much for being part of this conversation.

57:02 >> Thank you very much.