Articles
The New Moats in the AI Era
When people say "moat", they usually mean things like: - first-mover advantage - better features, better UI/UX, faster release cycles - network effect - exit / transition friction The problem is: In this AI led cycle, a lot of that is
I trained a personal GPT on 28 years of my writing
I fed nearly 400 pieces of my own writing into a personal GPT I built. Articles, podcasts, frameworks, talks, posts collected over the years. I wanted to see how close an AI could get to thinking like me. It got remarkably close on the surf
AI Is the Third Major Technology Shift of Our Lifetime. Are You Leveraging it Right?
Every major technology wave creates two kinds of leverage. Optimization and Expansion Both matter. But they create very different outcomes. - The PC revolution did. - The Internet revolution did. AI will too. But most companies are curren
Your team generated 200 reports this quarter
A few months back, I sat through a review where a team proudly showed me twenty AI-generated reports, decks, and campaign drafts. All produced in a week. I asked one question - What did you learn while making these? The answer made me reali
Every enterprise at London Tech Week had a six-figure software stack
I was at London Tech Week last week. Two days of sessions, and a lot of corridor conversations with CIOs, CTOs, founders, and enterprise buyers. The question everyone came in with was simple: how do we get real ROI from AI? Most enterprises
India's AI talent pool is among the world's largest
Vinod Kumar, from PwC's manufacturing practice, was on a podcast recently. One point he made deserves its own conversation. India's manufacturing is at 16% of GDP. The target is 25%. The national ambition is 25%. Vinod Kumar is clear that t
A 10-year-old in India is designing a tycoon game on Roblox
Inside the game, players pay to unlock special passes. He earns Robux, Roblox's virtual currency. That Robux can be spent inside the platform, and eligible creators can convert it into real money through Roblox's DevEx program. Roblox paid
One of Balaji's relatives lost his leg in a factory accident
I sat down with Balaji D Loganathan, founder of Spritle Software and SeeWise.AI for a podcast last week. I have known Balaji for a few years through Stanford Seed. AI for him was never a hype trade. It started with something personal. Years
The biggest risk in AI-generated code is not speed. It is false confidence.
I've watched the same mistake repeat itself in different forms. A new tool arrives. Everyone rushes to build faster, but nobody asks what comes after. Vibe coding is the newest version of the same mistake. You describe what you want, AI wri
The Real AI Strategy Starts With What Won't Change
Just got back from AIBoomi in Chennai - with a lot of clarity. Spoke to a bunch of tech leaders, besides the traditional midnight adda. Same underlying tension: AI is moving fast. Most businesses are not. What's the strategy? The session by
The tech job market looks contradictory right now
1) Companies are laying off thousands of employees. 2) Those very companies are aggressively hiring fresh graduates. 3) And many freshers are still struggling to find jobs. How can all three be true at the same time? Because something dee
You cannot fix a problem with a software
You fix it with culture, strategy, change management, and process. Software can help with process streamlining, automation, tracking, etc. So if a Software company comes and says, including my company Indus Net Technologies (INT.), that the
The Next Interface Revolution Is Here
In 70+ years of computing, the way we interact with computers has barely changed. 1940s–70s: Punch cards One-way communication. We spoke to digital machines in their language. Ones and zeroes! 1980s: Keyboards & screens Type in data and
After decades of running an IT service business, we crafted a tech product ground-up to solve our own problem
We scaled it to solve learning for mid to large enterprises. And it works - because it genuinely care for its users. Three public listed enterprises are already using this. Introducing MobiLearn - a gamified, insta-style, micro-learning pla
This Dhanteras feels different
Today, as I judged the finale of INT's AI Hackathon, I felt something deep — a mix of pride, joy, and confidence about where we're heading as a company. Over the past few weeks, ~70 internal teams and ~250 INTians — competed fiercely to bui
Convenience vs Independence - What you read is what you become
We have moved from the age of Memorized knowledge > Printed books > Digitized info > Search engine > GPTs Though convenience and speed of getting information/knowledge has increased, we have consistently lost independence of thought with ea
Dashboards are supposed to guide decisions. Most does not.
I was recently talking to a business owner, trying to understand his business better. I asked a simple question: "What were your sales numbers?" The answer came — but it wasn't clear if it was good, bad, or even close to target. That's was
What if every word you spoke - even the ones you whispered - was recorded
We're closer to that reality than most people realize. AI meeting tools are no longer just "helpful note-takers." Tools like Plaud can record conversations silently—no bot joining your call, no flashing red dot. These are wearable devices a
Data is like a coin – it always has two sides
When we look at company metrics, we often stop at the side that makes us feel good. But the truth is – data always has much more to say than what's on the surface. If we don't ask what's on the other side, we risk fooling ourselves. For yea
Managing Performance in the Age of AI
The way we measure performance has always been tied to the nature of work — and that nature has changed dramatically over time. First era → Operational work Tasks were repetitive, well-defined, and measurable. Quantity mattered more than an
From Campus to EdTech in 45 Days
Colleges and universities today face a hard truth: - Students have the attention span of a goldfish. - Traditional long lectures and PDFs are boring. Unless their life is on the line, they wont read it. - Most learners sign up for courses b
AI projects are failing—not loudly, but quietly and often
Last week, I shared some learnings from AI initiatives we've run over the past couple of years. These were not theoretical ideas. These were real projects, built for real businesses, by real teams. Some succeeded. Some taught us what not to
Skip India Movement - A counter thesis
There is a lot of discussion on Linkedin and Twitter about - tech companies skipping Indian enterprises due to endless "proof of concept" cycle. Let me dissect it for you from ground zero. We are not a startup, but we have also faced simila
First principles thinking unlocks innovations everyone calls "impossible."
Here's how to apply it like Elon Musk and why it matters: When SpaceX landed a 15-story rocket booster in 2015, experts were stunned. For 60+ years, aerospace companies treated $65M rockets as single-use trash. "Physics makes reusability im
Why the Current AI Wave May Go Bust
Every major technological revolution has seen its early waves crash — not because the technology lacked potential, but because of three recurring patterns: infrastructure insufficiency, over-expectation and under-delivery, and human adoptio
This AI genius crushed elite AI lab internships...
Aravind Srinivas was a prodigy from the start. Growing up in Chennai, cricket statistics sparked his love for numbers. After ranking among top students at IIT Madras, he earned his PhD at Berkeley and landed rare internships at elite AI lab
Your brain is being hacked by 7 psychological triggers that control your decisions.
A professor went undercover for 3 years to expose how companies manipulate you. In 1984, Robert Cialdini infiltrated car dealerships and telemarketing firms to observe professional persuaders. His research uncovered 7 principles that trigge
Kevin Mitnick didn't need guns to become America's most wanted hacker.
He used ONE psychological trick that exposed the fatal flaw in Fortune 500 security: At 12, Kevin discovered how to ride LA buses for free by punching blank transfer tickets found in dumpsters. This early "hack" revealed a crucial insight:
My 1000+ person tech company started as an accidental solution to a problem no one was solving.
The year was 1997 in Kolkata, India. Internet penetration was less than 1%. Most businesses had never heard of websites. I rented booth space at a computer expo without having an actual business to sell website design. That day, I landed my
E-learning is everywhere. But is it really working?
Let's be honest—most e-learning content is long, boring, and hard to retain. And that's exactly why it doesn't deliver the outcome it promises. So what's broken? The way we consume content has changed. But most learning systems haven't. T
Do you trust your doctor to make a better diagnosis than AI?
Maybe you shouldn't... A groundbreaking study from Stanford tested 50 physicians against AI on diagnosing complex medical cases. The results were eye-opening: • Doctors without AI: 74% accuracy • Doctors with AI tools: 76% accuracy • AI w
ChatGPT, as a versatile language model, can offer several ways to assist industry operations.
🎯 Customer Support: ChatGPT can be employed as a virtual customer support agent, providing real-time assistance and answering common customer queries. It can handle a wide range of inquiries, freeing up human agents to focus on more complex
AI is Great, It’s Inevitable, But Don’t Let FOMO Get to You
Feeling like you’re late to the AI party? Trust me, you’re not alone. Every few years, a new technology makes a big splash, and it’s easy to feel like you’ve missed the boat if you’re not on board right away. B
Why I Believe AI Should Be Open Source?
AI has been part of my work and life for a while now, and every day, I see both its potential and its risks. One thing that keeps bothering me is how easy it is for AI to influence people without them even realizing it. Think about it&mdash
AI Adoption Challenges in MSMEs: What’s Holding Them Back?
We did 40+ AI pilot projects for mid-large sized IT companies. Most companies want to invest in AI, but most are struggling to get ROI out of it. They have massive potential for growth using AI, but many hit a wall. Why? Lets break it down:
Leverage In The Age Of AI
Information and Location is no more a leverage. Internet has democratized it. Knowledge and Intelligence is no more a differentiator. AI is tapping into world’s knowledge and reasoning ability, and turning it into a commodity. Executi
Software development industry just got disrupted. AI is eating the software business.
We will see a new breed of software developers and creators. They need not necessarily be engineers, but will have empathy ❤️, deeper understanding of the problem 🧐, and a desire to solve them. They will have an ability to imagine a better
Embracing the AI Revolution: Transforming Knowledge Work!
The AI revolution is upon us, mirroring the transformative impact of the Industrial Revolution. Just as assembly lines automated manufacturing tasks, AI is now streamlining knowledge-based processes. Be it market research, software developm
How will AI impact Human Capital Management?
First thing first – We overestimate in short term, and underestimate in long term. It is as true for change, risk, as well as our own productivity. AI will definitely have an impact on most aspects of our life, over time. Possibilitie
The Rebel Economy
Today’s economy can be best described as the “Rebel Economy”. People seek decentralization and democratization of power. There is a tsunami against traditional authority. And this is changing the world like never before. L
Banks of the future?
What shall banks do when technology companies become banks of the future? They have plenty of choices actually! 1) Banks become technology companies. This is a very predictable response – you enter my turf, I enter your turf – a
Why is it important for digital marketing agencies to have deep tech capabilities going forward?
There are lots of areas where digital (or any) marketing agencies can leverage technology to complement their offering. 1) Create unique marketing automation journeys on top of existing open-source products, and have full creative control o
How to get your first job?
You have to get your first job. At times, this is the most difficult task-at-hand. IMO, the reason for this is the lack of basic marketing principals applied to yourself – segmentation, positioning and differentiation! So what can you
Technology Trends for 2012
I was thinking of writing this post for quite some time. But, @twitter has made me lazy. However, I have finally taken out time to summarize some technology trends that I see emerging and strengthening in 2012. Mainstream adoption of mobile
Software 2.0 – Transformation of Software Services
Recently, I got an opportunity to speak at an event organized by Computer Society of India, Delhi Chapter. The theme of the event was “Software 2.0” and I made a small presentation on “Software 2.0 – Transformation
Seeders – Angel fund and incubation for the tech startups!
I had precisely three envelope entrepreneurial ambitions! I call them envelope as each of them encompass several small ambitious projects. All three are aimed to change the world in my small way and make it a better place: To build a succes
Talking @ Internet World on Three Dimensions of Internet Strategy
Friends, I will be speaking @ Internet World in the Web2.0 theatre on 28th April 2009 from 16:40 hrs on “Three Dimensions of Internet Strategy” The talk will revolve around an approach that let businesses put together a comprehe
Braving the downturn – More recession strategies
I recently shared few ideas with fellow IT companies about braving the downturn in a NASSCOM event. The takeaway from the presentation was – Stick to fundamentals. Business is simple. If we complicate it for the sake of some buzzwords
What’s next? Social Media Fraud!
Over years, we have been subject to several frauds. It can be a political fraud when someone do horse-trading of members of legislative assembly / parliament to reach the coveted majority mark in the parliament. Or cast their influence to g
Technology is as good as its implementation
There are so many people working to get a new technology out to masses – a new invention to make things better. However, in my experience I firmly believe that: Technology is as good as its implementation. Many a time, little imaginat
Joomla templates overtakes traditional web templates in competition!
I was checking template trends on Google Trends and my intuition was positively reinforced. Joomla templates have officially overtaken traditional web template in search volume. The graph below is self explanatory. (click above to see live
Interesting visualization of Facebook activities
A very interesting visualization of Facebook traffic. Is this the future of web stats? And it can be interesting if the same video is shot over time-line with specific location kept constant. And yes, a facility to fast forward and slow mot
Street smart strategies for the recession
Hello Friends, Here are some street smart strategies to survive the recession: 1) Invest in marketing. Your competitors are not doing so to save money. You shall go ahead and make the kill to get maximum leads and exposure. As we know offen
My interview at new-web-business.com
Hello Friends, I have recently given an interview to Viraj Sawant of new-web-business.com on my views as "Blogging as a career". I found the interview interesting and have expressed my opinions strongly. Feel free to have a look: http://www
Internet strategy for small business
Friends, I have recently written an article for SME WORLD (November 2008 – January 2009) issue of Financial Express. It should be a good read for any small business if they want to put together an Internet strategy for their business.
Google Chrome does not support Google Toolbar
I thought only Microsoft messes up their products / releases. I could not understand, why will Google release such a major product i.e. a browser to compete against Microsoft and the Firefox without support for their own toolbar. Also, afte
Google Chrome – A quick review
I was reading about Google Chrome. > Some blog says that it has snapped up 2.8% market share in 24 hours. Amazing. Isn’t it? > Some feels they have dumped and back-stabbed their partner, Mozilla / Firefox So I decided to try it
Quillpad – Type in Indian regional languages
Today I came across an online tool called Quillpad. This online software let you type in most Indian regional languages (including Hindi, of course). The quality of application and usability has blown me away! I think such applications will
Started using Twitter
I have finally started using Twitter. My twitter page is http://www.twitter.com/abhishekrungta To be honest, I do not think Twitter is a great thing. Micro blogging does not catches my fancy, since it does not help me to add any value to my
Saturation of the social networking fad
There is a mad rush towards online social networking space. Every second person wants to get on the bandwagon with his own social networking website with a silly-sounding name. In my opinion, most of these sites are just a fad and are not b
The REAL Programmer automates his job
Just a random thought: Programmers are supposed to use their programming skills to automate business process for their clients. Therefore, a good programmer should be one, who takes an initiative of automating his own work and never repeats
Search engines opening up!
Yahoo announced that they are opening up their search results for third party data integration. This will allow third party to contribute to Yahoo search experience and make it more useful for their users. It will be interesting to see how
CSS reference
Recently I came across this excellent CSS reference website: http://reference.sitepoint.com/css I highly recommend this website since it has been written by two of the world’s most renowned CSS experts — Tommy Olssen and Paul O&
HTML 5 – Web developer’s paradise
W3C HTML Working Group has recently released HTML 5 working draft. This is a very important step forward; the same is available for review and comment at http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080122/ The new standard addresses the need of we
Project management softwares reviewed
Proper project management is key to a successful project. To manage multiple projects and teams which are geographically spread across the globe, you need a quality project management tool. As a medium sized web development company, we look
Open-source products are great. But know the limitations before you use it.
Apart from doing software / web development on Open-source platform, Indus Net Technologies also customize and implement open-source products for clients on demand. Some popular (and free) open-source products are SugarCRM, Drupal, osCommer
SEZs are not good for Small & Medium sized IT Enterprises
With the uncertainty over the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) scheme after the union budget, a mad rush towards Special Economic Zones (SEZs) is very much expected. I have been studying about SEZ or last three weeks and two things
Businesses can never be in equilibrium
Business organizations can never be in equilibrium or achieve stable position. Either they are moving up or they are moving down, depending upon their innovation quotient. If you are trying to keep things stable, they won’t remain so
How to handle social networking redundancy
I was reading about Ed Kohler’s post about social networking update redundancy. I think there can be a simple solution. To do this we may need a simple new standard format of data syndication, which can be a simple derivative of RSS.
Which “Google Apps” program do you use the most?
I recently read Ed Kohler’s comment where he has ranked the importance of various "Google Apps" programs in the following order: 1. Docs 2. Presentation 3. Spreadsheet However, I beg to differ. In my personal experience I have found s
Reliance & Naukri steps into social networking marketplace
Reliance’s BigAdda, Rediff’s iShare and Naurki’s Brijj.com are the latest dotcoms to hit the Indian social networking marketplace. It may trigger the next dotcom explosion with many more mindless dotcoms in line with these
Who needs whom? An acid test!
There is a big debate over India becoming an IT super-power. Every few days I will meet an over-excited guy who is impressed with the growth of Indian IT companies an think that they will take over the world soon! Let us do an acid test to
Check out Voki
Hi, I recently stumbled upon Voki (www.voki.com) which seems like a nice widget. It comes from Sitepal (www.sitepal.com). Actually I have used Sitepal in past. Unfortunately it didnt work great for me (nothing wrong with their product, but
Indus Net Academy – A step closer to my dream
There has been a lot of talk over the BIG IT talent pool in India. Every bureaucrat and market research agency in the country shows towering numbers of colleges and students that they produce. But the burning question is – Is this tal
Hostorix launches fail-safe linux based reseller hosting
I recently visited Hostorix.com. This is a new hosting company from an Internet marketing veteran – Armand Morin. I was impressed how Armand has identified a pain that most webmasters feel – Downtime! Aren’t we all worried
When Gmail makes life difficult
I am a big fan of Gmail because of its speed and simplicity. However Gmail makes life hell lot of difficult in some cases – 1. The Threading Bug While threading, Gmail creates threads based on the “Subject” of the email. I
Want to rank sites by quality? Check spelling and grammar!
Hi Folks, Google is doing everything in their capacity to weed out spam and return meaningful results for search queries. However it seems that they missed on an important aspect! Concept A good quality website will definitely have proper (
Indian companies may soon be able to experiment with AI use cases that today's compute costs make…
Reliance Industries Limited has announced a large investment in AI compute in India. The interesting part, for me, is not just the scale of the infrastructure. It is what happens to the economics of AI when compute becomes more affordable a
Companies are spending heavily on better AI models
Most AI discussions are still about models. I think the real challenge lies elsewhere. MIT NANDA found that 95% of AI pilots showed no measurable to P&L impact. The bigger gap was not model capability alone, but getting AI to integrate with
The world is spending billions to own AI infrastructure
Billions are going into NVIDIA's chips right now, data centres are coming up everywhere, and compute is being called the new oil. India needs that infrastructure too. But I do not think spending the most at that layer is our only path to wi
People assumed the AI race was about who builds the smartest model
For the last two years, we've spent an extraordinary amount of time debating models. GPT or Claude? Open-source or closed-source? Who has the biggest context window? Who tops the benchmarks? Those conversations still matter, but they're no
Everyone is talking about agents and autonomous systems
It begins with a simpler question: where is your user still typing too much, searching too much, or repeating work the system should have removed already? That is where AI creates value fastest. At Indus Net Technologies (INT.) this is how
95% of companies saw 0 returns after spending $30-40 billion on AI pilots in 2 years.
I have sat in enough boardrooms to see how it works. Business wants working software in weeks, & technology cannot compromise on security and scale, but finance refuses to fund large speculative builds upfront. Everyone is right, but nothin
People want Indian founders punished for building D2C instead of deep tech
Every few weeks, this argument shows up again online. Indian IT companies missed the AI race. Founders only build D2C, quick commerce, and easy money. Nobody wants to solve hard problems. I think that criticism is aimed at the wrong place.
Most of what I learn about where technology and business does not come from a keynote
This June, I will be traveling across Amsterdam, Vienna, London, New York, Charlotte and Delaware. It will be a busy month: 2 exhibitions, 30+ meetings, 5+ countries. I have been doing trips like this for a long time, what has changed is wh
A kirana owner in a 10-foot shop is now running his inventory by talking to his phone in Marathi
That is where Indian AI starts becoming really interesting. Two companies, almost the same week, showed where Indian AI is actually going. → Tohands is rolling out its AI‑powered smart calculator to target 1 million kirana stores nationwide
A production line running 24 hours can now catch defects faster than any human inspector
McKinsey & Company's research shows AI-driven predictive maintenance can reduce machine downtime by up to 50% and cut maintenance costs by 10 to 40%. These are not pilot numbers. These are results from deployed systems in the automotive, el
490 million Indians are labeled "high-riskers" by banks, which refuse to lend to them.
Traditional credit scores require a loan history. These workers are paid and earn in cash, remaining invisible to old systems. India's largest untapped lending market is not a new customer segment. There are 490 million workers who run kira
12 years ago, KritiLabs was managing 2 oil terminals
I had the privilege of speaking with Srikrishna Varadharajan, Founder and Director of KritiLabs Technologies, on my podcast last week. Shri has been in tech-commercial roles for nearly 2 decades. And KritiLabs are into IoT services with big