A new technological gamechanger: Can RIL do a Jio in AI services?

To ensure that AI is available to everyone, Reliance is building a delivery model where AI services and processing will be hosted on the Cloud over low latency broadband networks

Eight years ago, Reliance shook up the telecom market with rock-bottom data prices — a fourth of the global average — and free voice calls on its 4G network. That made India one of the world’s largest data markets.

Now the Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate is getting ready to trigger another disruption by “democratising” the benefits of the hottest new technological gamechanger: Artificial intelligence (AI).

At Reliance Industries’ 47th annual general meeting last week, Chairman Ambani spent a sizeable portion of his speech on AI and deep tech such as JioBrain, an AI service platform meant to scale up operations across the conglomerate’s various businesses. Meanwhile, Jio, its telecom unit, is working to bring AI-powered features for its users. 

Ambani laid out the AI roadmap for the group with the primary aim of ensuring that AI is available to “every Indian everywhere,” from mobile consumers to small-scale enterprises, once again at affordable prices.

To do so, the company is taking a route different from that taken by global mobile device hardware companies, which are focusing on keeping mostly AI processing within the device. Reliance, on the other hand, is building a delivery model where AI services and processing will be hosted on the cloud over low latency broadband networks. That will help in taking these services, now limited to a few high-end smartphones priced above Rs 60,000, to more affordable 4G and 5G phones, some of which may even be priced below Rs 10,000. 

Currently, among the few phones powered by AI, there is Samsung’s Ultra S24 AI, on which AI processing is done mostly in the device by the chip without any need of the internet. There is also the new Google Pixel 9. There is a buzz that Apple Inc’s forthcoming iPhone 16, to be released on September 9, will take the iPhone into AI territory.

Diwali cracker

Reliance Jio, to make what it calls “connected intelligence” a reality, will, come Diwali, offer all its 490 million consumers of 4G and 5G services 100 GB of free cloud storage through which they can access photos, videos, and other digital content even if they have limited storage on their phones. Those who want more, will have to pay to get it, at prices that are not steep.

The offer is more attractive than the offerings from other mobile device platforms with AI phones and the ones that are on their way. Google, with its Google One, and Samsung offer only 15GB free. Apple’s iPhone offers only 5GB. But if you want more, say 100GB, you fork out Rs 130 a month in the Google system, which is almost the monthly cost of a data plan in the country.

Experts say the free storage is a smart strategy to increase AI adoption.

“The free storage is a strategic move to remove friction to adopt JioCloud. However, the key driver is integration with different Jio services powered by AI-like transcribing of a users’ call, translating into other languages, backups and other future Jio services. Jio is trying to carve out its own niche, which is aligned to its strength and scope of businesses,” says Neil Shah, founder of Counterpoint Research in India.

He points out that the 100 GB storage is not really free. After all, the user is the product here and different calls and the contents uploaded by them will only help to train the Jio AI better, of course with the privacy issues in mind and with clear opt-ins.

But there is a disadvantage. 

Integration issue

Shah says that both Google One and Apple cloud are natively integrated with their operating systems. Jio, on the other hand, will be a siloed standalone system, except for calls and messages, and will have to work with original equipment manufacturers of mobile brands and chip suppliers such as Qualcomm, and with app developers to have the integration if it wants to increase usability and scalability of the app.

For example, WhatsApp chats are backed up on Google as an option on Android and on iCloud on Apple iPhones. Jio Cloud will need to similarly integrate.

That might not be so difficult considering that Google, Qualcomm, and Meta are all partners with equity stakes in Reliance Jio, which should translate into substantial leverage. 

The offer of higher storage, say some experts, might not have real impact, as Apple and Google are increasingly bundling services such as music, video, AI, and gaming with their higher plans, creating additional stickiness for the consumer. The question is, will Reliance do the same?

Local advantage

Those who have closely followed Reliance’s AI strategy say that what the company is working on is a large language module (LLM) -powered AI which will be trained on Indian user data, complexities of local languages, Indian culture and regulation, and provide a more localised experience which western countries-oriented AI will struggle with. That is going to be its edge over the big boys such as Google, Meta, or Apple.

Reliance is said to be working on a plethora of AI-powered services cutting across the consumer as well as enterprise markets. In the enterprise market, for instance, it is testing the waters by training AI across its own myriad businesses, such as for increasing efficiencies in its telecom network management to bots answering queries. It plans to offer a plethora of AI services — code optimisation, code debugging, code generation and code explanation, training and algorithm, and even LLM as a service.

In the consumer space, it is working on speech to speech, speech to text, image to video generation, text to music generation and image recognition as a service.

That’s not all; you can learn yoga from an AI-powered virtual coach, go for augmented reality shopping, and try clothing in the comfort of your home.

Of course, there are questions that will need to be addressed as Reliance reveals more details of its plan. As of now, no one really knows how good Reliance's AI is, because it is being used only within the group. Is it better or more relevant compared to the global offerings that have billions of dollars backing them? How would it compare with Indian AI offerings such as from 

Ola’s Krutrim?

Secondly, is Reliance’s existing infrastructure good enough to handle millions of queries?

Thirdly, how will the experience compare with a native, device-based AI? For instance, on Samsung’s phone data is processed by the AI embedded in the device and does not go out to the cloud. Will customers feel secure on Jio and let their data reside on the cloud?

“It will boil down to the quality of the service, who has the best app experience, upload experience, image tagging, and retrieval. That will determine the winners,” says Shah.

However, with Reliance joining the fray, the AI game has truly begun.