“Our philosophy with AI has always been to strengthen human intelligence, and for years, we have embedded AI and ML into our product portfolio,” says Shailender Kumar, senior vice-president and regional managing director, Oracle India. In a recent interview with Sudhir Chowdhary, he talks about some of the industry trends and customers’ preferences from a technological standpoint. Excerpts:
What are the key trends and innovations you are witnessing in the industry today?
We are living in an era that is innovating for the betterment of the industry and people. Many innovations are happening with embedded technologies such as generative AI, ChatGPT, edge computing or quantum computing. Cloud is gaining prominence as a key contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, reducing substantial carbon footprint for customers. Cloud adoption is not just an engine for revenue growth and efficiency – speed, scale, innovation, and productivity are essential benefits to pursuing broader business opportunities.
Various use cases among our customers demonstrate the continued adoption of cloud. One example is Uber that has been offering cheaper options in the three-wheeler services segment in New Delhi. This service seems to be at the forefront of Uber’s future growth initiatives, using the same technology but with an innovative factor. Very recently, Oracle and Uber announced Collect and Receive, a new offering on the Oracle Retail platform connecting retailers and consumers to enhance last-mile delivery.
Oracle is betting big on its generative AI solutions. Where do you see it play a key role among organisations in India?
Generative AI is a revolution. As India paces ahead of the digital transformation curve, companies are discovering new ways to reduce manual workloads, raise productivity levels, develop new products quickly, enhance customer experiences and provide customers with the freedom to ask and resolve questions. We just announced new AI-enabled services to improve our services and help our customers solve their biggest problems.
Many AI startups are already building their products directly on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure with Nvidia GPUs. We have embedded traditional and generative AI capabilities into our Fusion, NetSuite, and vertical software-as-a-service (SaaS) portfolio to create solutions that provide organisations with the full power of latest AI capabilities immediately.
Tell us about Oracle’s Gen AI strategy and the kind of opportunities it attracts in India?
Our philosophy with AI has always been to strengthen human intelligence, and for years, we have embedded AI and ML into our product portfolio. One of our primary goals here is to assist our customers in optimising costs and performance, and minimising the need for human action. Our strategy is established around the fact that enterprises work with AI through three ways: infrastructure, models, and services, and within applications.
How is Oracle able to bring together its approach that cuts across applications as well as infrastructure portfolio?
We are now in a ‘techade’ where businesses and workloads are becoming more complex. When business leaders focus on streamlining, budgeting, planning and forecasting, they often start with integration. There is a strong demand for integrated business solutions. Oracle follows a distinct approach where we offer a unified cloud offering with the functionality of infrastructure, enterprise applications, and industry applications – all integrated. We support our customers to visualise data in new ways, discover insights, and unlock endless possibilities.
