Celebrated market guru and Founder and Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, Uday Kotak believes that India’s focus should be on protecting future sovereignty, building strategic leverage and choosing the right technological battlegrounds. He stated that India’s recent engagement with AI at a national level was a ‘positive signal of intent, despite logistical challenges.’ He believes the future belongs to those ready to take uncomfortable bets.
He touched upon these points at the inaugural address of the 17th edition of Kotak’s flagship annual investor conference. The theme this year was Chasing Growth 2026. He highlighted market capitalisation, technological leadership and scale as key sources of disproportionate influence in today’s global economy.
Here is a quick recap of the 5 most important takeaways from his inaugural address.
#1 AI not just a tech shift but inflection point for civilisation
One of the most important aspects that he touched upon was the evolution of AI. Kotak pointed out that unlike past technological cycles, “AI may evolve through much shorter and faster cycles.”
Even as there is uncertainty about the timelines of the AI cycle and whether it will “compress dramatically compared to historical technology shifts,” he highlighted this uncertainty as the defining feature of the current environment. Kotak framed AI “not just as a technological shift, but as a civilisational inflection point.”
He highlighted asset management as another sector under disruption. According to him, there can be a –
– Shift from active to passive
– Emergence of AI-driven portfolio management
According to him, the key risks include
– Investors increasingly bypass intermediaries
– AI significantly compress intermediation margins
He believes that compared to asset management, “banking has much higher intermediation costs, making it more vulnerable unless it adapts.” Adapting to disruption. Kotak framed “disruption as inevitable and accelerating.” In his view, “it is better to embrace AI and disruption proactively than to wait for certainty.”
He believes that the future belongs to those willing to take large, uncomfortable bets, and that transformation requires both corporate courage and investor conviction.
#2 Tackling capital markets and investor dynamics
Speaking on India’s macroeconomic readiness, Kotak believes that India is entering this phase with “a relatively stable external position, a pragmatic approach to currency management and currency depreciation against major currencies.”
He highlighted two markets as central from an investor perspective: (1) currency and (2) equities.
According to him, “currency management is driven by policy pragmatism. Outcomes in equity markets are linked to retail investor behaviour and the ongoing tussle between momentum-driven investing and value discovery.”
#3 The growth dynamics and long-term prospects
Speaking on the role of investors in enabling long-term growth, he emphasised that India’s leverage must ultimately come from Indian companies. He pointed out that investors must be “willing to tolerate multi-year gestation periods” and accept “lower near-term profitability in exchange for future strategic positioning.”
He highlighted the contrast with global peers, where large global corporations are making massive future-orientated investments, often without concern for profit dilution in the next several years. He emphasised the need for more “visionary capital” and greater alignment between “corporate ambition and investor patience.”
#4 India-US relations strategically important
Touching upon geopolitics and strategic balance, Kotak described that India’s “relationship with the US is strategically important and value-enhancing.” At the same time, India’s engagement with China was “unavoidable due to geography and trade linkages,” he highlighted. He emphasised realism on this front, as “geography cannot be changed and domestic competitiveness must be improved.”
He believes that one of India’s key strategic levers is “access to its domestic market, as granting greater access strengthens geopolitical and trade relationships, particularly with Europe and the US.”
#5 Challenges in banking sector
He described the Indian banking sector as being in “relatively good financial health, but facing certain challenges.” According to him, “rising cost to serve in an environment where financial services are increasingly expected to be delivered at near-zero marginal cost” is one of the key challenges. He outlined the traditional “grand bargain” of Indian banking “is under strain because deposits are shifting from ‘money in storage’ to ‘money in motion’. Furthermore, technology and alternative financial products are changing depositor behaviour, he pointed out.
Conclusion
In the current context, Kotak cited that the current global order is being shaped by three factors – technology, defence and capital. He believes that these forces underpin the dominance of two superpowers – the US and China. In this context, he highlighted that meaningful transformation needs courage and conviction.