India has emerged as one of the most dynamic hubs for artificial intelligence innovation. Over the past decade, Indian founders have moved beyond outsourcing and IT services into building globally competitive AI products in search, healthcare, enterprise automation, conversational platforms, and foundational model infrastructure. What distinguishes this generation is not just technical skill but the ability to blend deep research with scalable business models and real-world deployment.
From healthcare diagnostics saving lives to AI assistants competing with Big Tech, these founders are shaping the next chapter of the AI revolution. Following them provides insight into where AI products, policy, and commercialization are headed in 2026 and beyond.
Below are ten Indian AI founders to follow closely, based on their leadership, company growth, product impact, and influence on the global AI ecosystem.
1. Aravind Srinivas – Co-founder & CEO, Perplexity AI
Aravind Srinivas is one of the most prominent Indian-origin AI founders on the global stage. With a background in advanced AI research, he co-founded Perplexity AI to reimagine search using large language models. Perplexity’s product blends conversational AI with real-time web knowledge, positioning itself as a challenger to traditional search engines and assistant tools.
By 2025, Perplexity had reached hundreds of millions of monthly queries and achieved a multibillion-dollar valuation. The company launched its own AI browser and mobile assistant, signaling a push into distribution and user-owned search experiences. Srinivas is known for emphasizing accuracy, citations, and transparency in AI answers.
Why follow him:
He represents the new wave of AI-native consumer products built by Indian founders that compete directly with Silicon Valley giants.
2. Umesh Sachdev – Co-founder & CEO, Uniphore
Umesh Sachdev began his journey with speech recognition and evolved Uniphore into one of the world’s leading enterprise conversational AI platforms. The company provides automation and analytics for contact centers, sales teams, and customer service operations using voice, text, and video intelligence.
By late 2025, Uniphore had raised large growth-stage funding and expanded its customer base across North America, Europe, and Asia. It operates at the intersection of generative AI, speech analytics, and business process automation.
Why follow him:
Sachdev’s work shows how AI can drive real productivity in enterprise workflows, not just experimental tools.
3. Swapnil Jain – Co-founder & CEO, Observe.AI
Observe.AI focuses on using AI to improve call center performance through conversation intelligence and agent coaching. The platform analyzes millions of customer interactions to help companies improve compliance, customer satisfaction, and operational efficiency.
The company serves large enterprises in banking, insurance, healthcare, and telecom. Its growth over recent years reflects rising enterprise demand for AI that can interpret human conversations reliably and securely.
Why follow him:
Swapnil Jain is building AI that lives inside critical business systems, showing how machine learning becomes indispensable infrastructure.
4. Raghu Ravinutala – Co-founder & CEO, Yellow.ai
Yellow.ai has become one of India’s leading conversational automation platforms. It enables enterprises to deploy chatbots and voice assistants across multiple languages and channels, including messaging apps, websites, and call centers.
The company has scaled to hundreds of global customers and reports strong recurring revenue growth. Its multilingual capabilities make it especially relevant for emerging markets with diverse language needs.
Why follow him:
Ravinutala is demonstrating how localization and language technology can unlock billion-user markets.
5. Prashant Warier – Co-founder & CEO, Qure.ai
Prashant Warier leads Qure.ai, a healthcare AI startup focused on medical imaging and diagnostics. The company develops AI tools that interpret X-rays and CT scans to detect diseases such as tuberculosis, stroke, and lung cancer.
Qure.ai has deployed its solutions in hospitals across multiple countries and has completed late-stage funding rounds to expand into regulated Western markets. Its products are clinically validated and used by doctors in real settings.
Why follow him:
Warier’s work shows how AI can save lives through scalable diagnostics and evidence-based healthcare innovation.
6. Geetha Manjunath – Founder & CEO, NIRAMAI
Dr. Geetha Manjunath founded NIRAMAI to tackle breast cancer detection using non-invasive thermal imaging combined with machine learning. Her approach allows early screening without radiation or physical contact, making it suitable for mass screening in low-resource settings.
NIRAMAI has screened thousands of women across India and expanded into international markets. The company collaborates with hospitals and public health organizations to improve early diagnosis rates.
Why follow her:
She represents the powerful intersection of AI, women’s health, and affordable medical technology.
7. Srikanth Velamakanni – Co-founder & Group CEO, Fractal Analytics
Fractal Analytics is one of India’s largest AI and analytics firms serving global enterprises. Srikanth Velamakanni has grown the company into a major provider of decision intelligence, combining data science with business consulting.
Fractal works with Fortune 500 companies across retail, finance, and healthcare. Its scale and maturity position it as a bridge between traditional analytics and modern generative AI solutions.
Why follow him:
Velamakanni’s journey illustrates how Indian AI firms can scale into global, enterprise-grade organizations.
8. Vipul Ved Prakash – Founder & CEO, Together AI
Vipul Ved Prakash is a key figure in the open-model and AI infrastructure movement. Together AI provides tools and compute resources for training and deploying open-source large language models.
The company supports developers and startups who want alternatives to closed AI platforms. It achieved unicorn status through rapid growth in developer adoption and cloud partnerships.
Why follow him:
He is shaping the future of open and decentralized AI ecosystems.
9. Ashish Vaswani – Co-founder & CEO, Essential AI
Ashish Vaswani is one of the most respected AI researchers in the world and a co-author of the landmark “Attention Is All You Need” paper that introduced transformers. He later founded Essential AI to focus on building advanced AI systems with an emphasis on openness, safety, and scientific rigor.
Essential AI aims to push frontier research while making AI tools accessible for broader use. Vaswani’s public thought leadership on model architecture and AI responsibility is widely followed.
Why follow him:
He connects cutting-edge research with real-world product development and long-term AI ethics.
10. Amitabh Nag – CEO, Bhashini (Digital India Initiative)
Amitabh Nag leads Bhashini, India’s national language AI program. Bhashini focuses on building translation, speech recognition, and text generation tools in Indian languages to make digital services accessible to all citizens.
The initiative supports startups, researchers, and government agencies by providing open datasets and APIs for language technology. Its work influences policy, education, and digital inclusion on a massive scale.
Why follow him:
Nag’s work shows how AI can be treated as public infrastructure, not just a commercial product.
What Makes These Founders Stand Out
1. Focus on Real-World Problems
Most of these founders work on concrete challenges: healthcare diagnostics, customer service automation, multilingual communication, and enterprise productivity. Their success is measured in deployment, not demos.
2. Combination of Research and Business
Several founders come from deep research backgrounds but have built commercially viable companies. This blend ensures products are technically strong and financially sustainable.
3. Global Outlook
Although rooted in India, these companies serve global markets, from the United States to Europe and Southeast Asia.
4. Localization and Inclusion
Language technology and healthcare solutions address uniquely Indian needs while scaling globally.
5. Infrastructure Thinking
Some founders focus not just on apps but on building platforms and ecosystems for others to innovate on top of.
Trends These Founders Are Driving in 2026
- Enterprise AI Adoption – AI is becoming standard in contact centers, finance, and operations.
- Healthcare AI Expansion – Diagnostics and triage tools are moving into mainstream hospitals.
- Open Models vs Closed Models – A split between open-source AI and proprietary platforms is becoming clearer.
- Language AI for the Masses – Indian language models are bringing AI to non-English users.
- Policy and Ethics Integration – Government-backed initiatives are shaping responsible AI frameworks.
Why You Should Follow Them
- To understand where AI is heading in product and business terms.
- To learn how Indian founders compete globally in advanced technology.
- To track innovations that affect healthcare, communication, and daily life.
- To see how AI policy and infrastructure are being shaped in emerging markets.
Final Thoughts
The Indian AI ecosystem is no longer just a talent pool for global companies; it is producing category-defining founders and products. These ten leaders represent diverse paths: consumer AI, enterprise automation, healthcare diagnostics, open models, and national infrastructure.
Their stories highlight a central truth: innovation is no longer limited to one geography. The next generation of AI breakthroughs will come from founders who understand both technology and the human problems it must solve.
Following these ten Indian AI founders is not just about watching companies grow. It is about witnessing how artificial intelligence is being molded into tools that matter — across languages, borders, and industries.
As AI becomes embedded into everyday systems, these founders will play a critical role in shaping how billions of people experience technology.
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