Even established businesses can find new opportunities in AI, says Sunil Mittal

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT are opening up new possibilities for Bharti Enterprises, founder and chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said, urging businesses to recognise technological shifts and act early if they want to remain competitive.

Speaking with Kevin Sneader, Goldman Sachs’ president of Asia Pacific excluding Japan, at the investment bank’s 10,000 Women graduation event, Mittal said companies needed to adapt their strategies as new technologies created opportunities and take the risks necessary to build businesses around them.

“We are seeing very different technology shifts happening. I would say that even ChatGPT has exposed a company like ours to new possibilities,” Mittal said.


He linked the opportunities emerging from AI to the shifts that shaped his own business, from manufacturing bicycle components in Ludhiana to introducing push-button telephones in India in the early 1980s and later entering mobile telecommunications.

“You have to pivot, move out and find new areas. At a time when technology was coming through the door, we had to grab those opportunities early, almost at the same time as, if not ahead of, everybody else, and then take the chances necessary to create success,” he said.

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Mittal said identifying opportunities at the right time had played a central role in Bharti’s growth, even when the company lacked the financial strength of bigger competitors.

“The lesson is that opportunities keep coming through the door. You have to identify them at the right moment and then run with them,” he said.

He also stressed the importance of raising capital and building investor confidence, saying entrepreneurs needed to make a convincing case for their products, services or ideas when seeking money to pursue new opportunities.

“You need to be convincing enough about your story, your product, service or idea that you can get people to put money on the table,” Mittal said.

Looking ahead, he expressed confidence in India’s prospects over the next two decades, pointing to its young population and the potential for young entrepreneurs to drive economic growth.

“We will probably see India rise to become the second- or third-largest economy in the world,” he said.

With inputs from ANI