When most people talk about AI investing in India, the conversation starts and ends with TCS, Infosys, and Wipro. And fair enough — these are large, liquid, and well-researched. But the more interesting story in 2026 is playing out a few rungs below, in companies where AI is not a tagline in the annual report. It is the actual product, the actual revenue driver, the actual reason the stock exists.
Here are six listed Indian companies working in the AI space that most retail investors have not paid enough attention to yet.
1. Netweb Technologies (NSE: NETWEB) — Building the Machines That Run AI
Current price: approximately Rs 3,888 (as of mid-May 2026)
Market cap: approximately Rs 21,654 crore
FY26 revenue: Rs 2,184 crore (up 90% year-on-year)
If you have been trying to find an Indian equivalent of an AI infrastructure play, Netweb Technologies is probably the closest thing the market offers. The company, founded in 1999 and based in New Delhi, builds high-performance computing systems, supercomputers, AI servers, and data centre solutions under its Tyrone brand. Everything is designed and manufactured in India, which gives it a natural tailwind from the Make in India push.
What makes Netweb genuinely interesting right now is the pace of the transformation. A few years ago, AI was a small slice of its revenue.
In FY26, AI systems contributed 43% of total revenue. Full-year FY26 revenue grew 90% year-on-year. Net profit for the year was Rs 206 crore, up 80% over FY25.
The order pipeline stands at Rs 4,270 crore. These are not IT services numbers. These are hardware infrastructure numbers, and the demand is coming from enterprises, government bodies, and sovereign AI projects that need domestic GPU-based computing capabilities.
The company has also featured 15 times across three entries in the global Top500 supercomputers ranking, which is a credibility marker that most Indian IT firms cannot claim.
The stock has been volatile.
It listed in July 2023 and ran hard before cooling off. The current price reflects some profit-booking after strong results, but management has guided for 30 to 35% revenue growth in FY27.
2. Fractal Analytics (NSE: FRACTAL) — India’s Quiet Pure-Play AI Company
Current price: Rs 921 (as of early May 2026)
Market cap: approximately Rs 15,835 crore
FY26 revenue: Rs 3,300 crore (up 19% year-on-year)
Fractal Analytics is perhaps the most underappreciated name on this entire list. Founded in 2000, it recently listed on NSE and is one of the very few Indian companies that can genuinely call itself a pure-play enterprise AI firm.
There is no legacy IT services business here. The company helps large global enterprises use AI to make better decisions, through its platforms Cogentiq and Fractal Alpha, and through bespoke machine learning solutions for supply chains, customer behaviour, and risk management.
Its client list reads like a Fortune 500 gathering: Citi, Costco, Nestle, Mondelez, and Mars, among 122 clients as of late 2025. These are long-term engagements, not project work.
FY26 numbers were encouraging.
Revenue grew 19% to Rs 3,300 crore. More importantly, the company became entirely debt-free in FY26, having repaid all outstanding debt.
Net profit for Q4 FY26 jumped 115% year-on-year to Rs 117.8 crore. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage with an Overweight rating and a target price of Rs 964, citing AI-driven growth and improving margins. Goldman Sachs also recently initiated coverage.
The stock trades at a PE of around 52, which is a premium. But for a pure-play AI software company with global clients and improving profitability, the market is willing to pay for the quality.
3. Affle India (NSE: AFFLE) — AI That Actually Works in Advertising
Current price: approximately Rs 1,506 (as of early May 2026)
Market cap: approximately Rs 21,208 crore
FY26 revenue: Rs 2,709 crore (up 19.5% year-on-year)
Affle India tends to get dismissed as an ad-tech company, which technically it is, but that framing misses what the business actually does. Affle runs a consumer intelligence platform where AI is not a feature — it is the engine. The system continuously analyses user behaviour across mobile devices, figures out which users are most likely to convert, and delivers hyper-targeted advertising at the right moment. Advertisers pay only when a conversion happens. There is no payment for impressions or clicks. Just results.
This model means AI quality directly determines revenue. The better the machine learning, the more conversions, the more money Affle makes. It is as clean an AI revenue model as you will find in an Indian listed company.
FY26 was a strong year. Revenue grew 19.5% to Rs 2,709 crore. Full-year net profit was Rs 454.8 crore, up 19% year-on-year. Q4 FY26 alone saw 20.28% revenue growth and EBITDA margins of 22.3%. The company is debt-free with a pre-tax margin of 21%. User conversions, the key operating metric, grew from 103 million to nearly 120 million in Q4 year-on-year.
The stock has pulled back significantly from its 52-week high of Rs 2,185. The current price around Rs 1,506 puts the PE at around 46 to 48 times, which is more reasonable than it has been in a while. Management has guided for continued investment in improving AI engines and expanding platform capabilities globally, particularly across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
4. E2E Networks (NSE: E2E) — India’s GPU Cloud
Current price: approximately Rs 3,116 (as of mid-May 2026)
Market cap: approximately Rs 6,407 crore
FY26 revenue: Rs 245.6 crore (up 49.8% year-on-year)
E2E Networks is a small company with an interesting structural position. As Indian enterprises increasingly build AI workloads and AI applications, they need compute. Most of that compute has gone to AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. E2E is betting that there is a significant market of Indian enterprises and startups that want domestic cloud infrastructure with lower latency, better data residency, and cost advantages.
The numbers are early-stage but compelling. FY26 revenue grew 49.8% to Rs 245.6 crore. The monthly revenue run rate hit Rs 37.4 crore in March 2026, compared to Rs 11.2 crore in March 2025 — a threefold increase in twelve months. EBITDA margins expanded sharply to 60.7% in Q4 FY26. In April 2026, the company signed a USD 7.7 million, six-month GPU cloud services agreement with a US-based AI provider, which is a meaningful endorsement.
The company is currently loss-making at the net profit level as it invests heavily in infrastructure. The stock also has a wide 52-week range of Rs 1,833 to Rs 3,894, reflecting the volatility that comes with early-stage growth companies. The board recently approved a stock split, subdividing each Rs 10 share into ten Rs 1 shares, which should improve liquidity.
This is not a stock for conservative investors. But for those willing to take early-stage risk on a domestically relevant AI infrastructure thesis, E2E is one of the more interesting names in the small-cap space that one could deep dive into to learn more.
5. Latent View Analytics (NSE: LATENTVIEW) — The Quiet Data Company
Current price: approximately Rs 475 (as of mid-May 2026)
Market cap: approximately Rs 9,785 crore
52-week range: Rs 322 to Rs 567
Latent View Analytics is Chennai-based, founded in 2006, and focused entirely on data analytics and AI. It serves clients across consumer goods, retail, technology, media, and industrial sectors in the US, UK, Netherlands, and Singapore. Services include marketing analytics, supply chain analytics, risk and compliance, and AI and machine learning implementations.
What distinguishes Latent View from a generic IT services company is the depth of the data work. Clients come to Latent View not for outsourced development but for analytical capability they do not have in-house. The company has a strong presence with US-based tech and CPG companies, which insulates it somewhat from the pricing pressure that affects commodity IT work.
The stock has underperformed over the past year, trading near the lower end of its 52-week range. The PE stands at around 61 times and the PB at 7.1 times, which looks expensive on surface but is consistent with the quality premium this type of business typically commands. Analysts have a 12-month average target of around Rs 600, implying significant upside from current levels.
The company is profitable, debt-free, and generating steady cash. For investors who want AI exposure without the volatility of smaller names, it’s worth adding Latent View to the watchlist..
6. Happiest Minds Technologies (NSE: HAPPSTMNDS) — Born Digital, Under Pressure
Current price: approximately Rs 380 (as of mid-May 2026)
Market cap: approximately Rs 5,500 crore
FY26 revenue: Rs 2,162 crore
52-week return: down approximately 35%
Happiest Minds is a contrarian inclusion here. The stock has had a difficult year, falling about 35% over the past twelve months. But the underlying business is more interesting than the price action suggests.
Founded by Ashok Soota in 2011, the company built itself on the premise of being entirely digital and entirely AI-first from day one, unlike legacy IT firms that are retrofitting AI onto older service lines. It offers services across product engineering, digital business solutions, and infrastructure management, with AI embedded across all three.
FY26 revenue was Rs 2,162 crore and net profit was Rs 184.7 crore. The company recently partnered with UnifyApps to accelerate enterprise AI adoption and transition projects. SBI Mutual Fund has been accumulating the stock. Eight analysts currently have buy ratings with an average target of Rs 524, implying upside of around 38% from current levels. The 52-week low is Rs 330 and the high is Rs 674.
The underperformance reflects a challenging demand environment for mid-tier IT, not a structural problem with the business. For those who believe in the AI services thesis and are comfortable with near-term volatility, consider adding Happiest Minds to the watchlist.
A Word of Caution
These companies span a wide range of risk profiles, from the relatively established Fractal and Affle to the early-stage E2E Networks. Valuations across the board are not cheap. The Indian AI market is projected to grow at roughly 30% CAGR and cross Rs 60,000 crore by 2032, which gives this theme a long runway. But not every company will survive the competition, execution challenges, or valuation re-ratings that come with any growth sector.
Disclaimer:
Sonia Boolchandani is a seasoned financial writer She has written for prominent firms like Vested Finance, and Finology, where she has crafted content that simplifies complex financial concepts for diverse audiences.
Disclosure: The writer and her his dependents do not hold the stocks discussed in this article.
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