ET Soonicorns Summit 2025: India sits on a data treasure trove, says Shiprocket CEO Saahil Goel

The question India must ask itself when it comes to building AI models is, “what is our own?” said Saahil Goel, Managing Director and CEO of Shiprocket, during a panel discussion titled ‘Unravelling AI Moats for Market Leadership’ at the ET Soonicorns Summit on Friday.

In a discussion with ETtech's Pratik Bhakta, Goel highlighted how India, despite having a massive population and the largest number of internet users, isn't truly benefiting from the vast amount of data it generates. He pointed out that large AI models such as ChatGPT are being trained on Indian data, yet this same data seems to bring little to no value back to the country. “What is the RoI (return on investment) India makes on that?” he asked.

“We've got the largest population in the world, the most number of internet users, we are generating the most content out there, we are going to grow in generating that content out there, how is that paying back to us?” he asked, stressing that India holds “huge treasure troves of data” and must start using it to build its own AI models.


Co-panelist Piyush Shah, cofounder of InMobi, shared how AI has changed the way employees work. He described the effect as a “super agency”, giving people a sense of power and the ability to multitask and do more efficiently.

However, Shah made it clear that simply automating tasks with AI isn’t enough. “The real game is to transform the company's product itself,” he said.

“And for doing that, you want your people (employees) out there to feel that power,” Shah added, underlining the importance of empowering teams to drive real innovation.

Also Read: ET Soonicorns Summit 2025: AI will impact low-skilled workers, experts say