My Delhi Trip to Understand the AI Ecosystem

Sanu kumar

Oct 5

8 min read

At that point, I was staying in Hyderabad and was also trying to figure out what I actually wanted to do next in life, what kind of business I should work on, what kind of problems I should solve, and where the market was actually moving. AI was already at its peak hype, everyone was talking about AI, companies were building products around it, people were launching new things every day, so when I got to know that an AI Summit was happening in Delhi, I thought that instead of just reading about all of this online, I should actually go there and see what people are building and how far India has reached in the AI space.

I wanted to understand things from an Indian context, especially how AI was being used for Indian users and Indian problems, what kind of companies were working aggressively in this space, what kind of products were being built, how mature those products were, and at the same time, I was also curious to understand whether these companies were actually generating revenue or whether most of them were still in the early stage of experimentation.

So I planned my trip from Hyderabad to New Delhi.

I also had a few people whom I wanted to meet during the trip, Vikas was there, whom I had met while preparing for IIT, Nandini and Govind were my batchmates, I also wanted to meet Simar, and I had planned to meet Divya Bansal as well, whom I knew from my IIT master's days, so there were already a few people and plans around the trip apart from the summit itself.

I flew to Delhi around the 18th or 19th of February and stayed at my brother's place near JNU, and from there I started visiting the summit.

Day 1 - My First Experience of the AI Summit

Day one was honestly quite overwhelming for me because I had never seen such a big crowd around AI and there were so many companies, products, installations and people working on completely different problems, from startups to big companies, from young people to people who had been working in the industry for years, everyone seemed to be trying to understand how AI could fit into what they were already doing.

I had also carried my camera, gimbal and other things because I wanted to shoot and document the entire event, and I ended up shooting quite a few videos which I later posted on my YouTube channel, so apart from exploring the summit, I was also trying to capture what I was seeing.

There were a lot of products which were genuinely interesting, I remember seeing one product which was using AI to detect defects in railway tracks, I think it was from Mahindra or Tata, although I don't remember the exact company now, but the idea itself was interesting because it showed how AI could be applied to something very specific and practical in India.

There were also some really creative Adobe installations where people could actually interact with the technology instead of just watching a normal product demonstration, and there were products around agriculture where farmers could get weather-related information early and plan things better, which could potentially help reduce crop wastage and make things more predictable for them.

Then there were companies like Airtel, Adobe and so many other big names, and honestly, at one point it felt like if you just thought of a major company, there was a good chance that they had something there.

I was really excited to see all of this because I wasn't only looking at AI as a technology, I was trying to understand how different industries were actually using it, what kind of problems they were trying to solve and whether these products were genuinely going to help people.

At the same time, one thought kept coming to my mind, which was about the business side of all of this, because I could see the products, I could see the technology, I could see the presentations and the excitement around everything, but I wasn't really seeing the revenue part anywhere, and that was something I was personally very conscious about because I was also trying to understand what kind of business I should work on and whether these things were actually becoming sustainable businesses or were still at a very early stage.

Another thing I was observing very closely was how people were launching and presenting their products, because I had gone there not only to understand what people were building but also how they were presenting it, how they were speaking about it, how they were making it accessible to people and how they were getting someone interested in a product within a few minutes.

I realised that a product is not just the product itself, there are so many other things which go along with it, the way you present it, the way you speak about it, the way you demonstrate it, the way you interact with people and how easily you can make someone understand what you have built, all of these things matter.

For me, that was equally important to observe because I was watching people pitch, demonstrate and explain their products, and somewhere I was also learning how to speak more efficiently, how to present myself better and how to explain an idea without making it complicated.

So day one was not only about understanding AI, it was also about understanding how people are making their products accessible to others and how presentation itself plays a big role in making people interested in something.

Day 2 - Exploring More and Seeing Things Differently

By day two, I had already covered most of the places that I wanted to see on the first day, so I thought of exploring the places which I had missed and also going back to some of the places which I found really interesting on day one.

There were a lot of interactive and fun experiences, one of the things I remember was LEGO, where they had come up with new innovative products and games, and there were also interactive screens where you could give your voice or thoughts as an input and then see how it could be represented visually on the screen.

There were many such experiences where people were not just standing and looking at a product, they were actually interacting with it, and I found that really interesting because it showed how technology can become much more engaging when you allow people to experience it instead of simply explaining it to them.

So on day two, I mostly visited the places which I hadn't properly explored on day one, and at the same time I also went back to the places which I thought were the best from the first day, I was taking more videos, exploring more products and trying to understand how different companies were making their products interesting and accessible.

Eventually, we were quite tired because we had spent almost the entire day walking around and exploring.

After the day was over, I went to Connaught Place with my friends, had some Domino's pizza, had paan with them, and then went back to my brother's place.

By then, the summit part of the trip was more or less done, but I still had a few people to meet before heading back to Hyderabad.

Day 3 - Meeting Govind and Nandini

Day three was more about meeting people rather than visiting the summit.

I had planned to meet Govind and then Nandini, both of whom were my batchmates, and we planned to meet around the Chandni Chowk side, if I remember correctly.

After spending two days surrounded by companies, products, AI installations and so much information, it was actually nice to step away from all of that and just meet people and have normal conversations.

These conversations were obviously very different from what I was experiencing at the summit, because there was no product demonstration or company presentation happening, it was just people catching up, talking about what they were doing, what was happening in life and where everyone was heading.

I also had a plan to meet Divya that day, but somehow that meeting got cancelled, so I had to adjust the plan accordingly.

At this point, I was already thinking a lot about what I would do after returning to Hyderabad because the last two days had given me a lot of things to think about, especially around AI, business, products, education and the kind of problems I could potentially work on.

I was still trying to make sense of everything I had seen, and I think meeting friends in between actually helped me take a little break from all of that information.

Day 4 - Meeting Aparna Before Flying Back

Day four was basically my last day in Delhi, and I had one more meeting planned with Aparna before leaving.

My flight was around 10 PM, so we planned to meet around 5:30 or 6 in Hauz Khas, and since the day was already almost done and I was tired from the previous few days, I thought it would be good to meet her before leaving Delhi.

I reached there and ended up waiting for around 30-45 minutes, and honestly, somewhere I was hoping that she would come a little early because I still had to reach the airport on time, but anyway, I waited and meanwhile I was also thinking about what I was going to do once I went back to Hyderabad.

I was thinking about what kind of work I should focus on, whether I should explore AI more seriously, which sector I should work in, and whether there was something I could build which would actually be useful to people.

Once Aparna arrived, we had a good time, had dinner and talked, and by then I was already getting quite late for my flight, so I had to leave for the airport.

There was a genuine chance that I could miss the flight, but thankfully I reached around 5-10 minutes earlier than I needed to, so I managed to make it.

I also updated Aparna once I reached the airport, and then finally took my flight back to Hyderabad.

And that was pretty much the end of the Delhi trip.

What I Took Back From the Trip

After coming back to Hyderabad, I started sorting down whatever I had understood from the trip, what I had seen at the summit, what kind of products people were building, how they were presenting them, what kind of industries were using AI and what kind of problems they were trying to solve.

One area which kept coming back to me was education.

I started looking at what people were already doing in the education sector, what kind of products had already been built, what problems were being solved, where AI was actually being used and where there were still gaps.

And I think this trip helped me understand things from a much bigger picture.

Before going to Delhi, I was mostly thinking about AI as a space and trying to figure out what I could build around it, but after seeing so many different products and people working on different problems, I started thinking more about where AI could actually be useful, what people genuinely need, which problems are worth solving and where I could contribute based on what I already know.

For me, that was probably the biggest value of the trip.

I went to Delhi to understand how far India had reached in AI, what people were building and how the market was moving, but I also came back with a better understanding of how to look at opportunities, how to present ideas, how to observe what people are doing and, most importantly, what kind of questions I should be asking before deciding what I want to work on.

It was a great experience, I enjoyed the whole trip a lot, I got to meet friends, explore Delhi, shoot some content, see some genuinely interesting products and spend a few days thinking about what I wanted to do next.

And maybe that was the best part of the trip for me, I didn't come back with one fixed answer about what I should build, but I came back with a much clearer idea about what I should be looking for.