A thesis for AI in India: Solving the drudgery tech left behind [Part 2]
In Part 1, we explained how MSMEs in India employ over 500mn(!) workers who can execute tirelessly, but these MSMEs lack structured workflows and capacity to plan, thus trapping owners in daily chaos. While traditional software has digitised operations, we explored how AI can actually think, plan, and orchestrate complex workflows to become the “thinking layer” that Indian MSMEs desperately need.
Today we’ll show you how AI can do this in practice:
Most Indian MSMEs operate within a “workflow vacuum”, i.e, a system where they have little to no standard procedures, no systematic coordination, or structured approach to getting work done. The owner's experience and daily firefighting substitute for actual management systems.
Walk into any small manufacturing unit in Ludhiana, any construction site in Gurgaon, or any retail store in Chennai, and you'll find the same pattern: plenty of workers, ambitious owners, but no systematic way to organise work, provide feedback, or coordinate complex operations. Everything depends on the owner being present, making decisions, and solving problems as they creep up.
This workflow vacuum creates cascading problems:
There's no systematic way to coordinate between different teams or processes
Workers don't receive consistent guidance on improving their techniques
Knowledge stays trapped in individual experience rather than becoming an organisational capability
Quality depends entirely on individual attention rather than systematic oversight
Traditional solutions - hiring supervisors, implementing formal project management, creating documented processes - are either too expensive or too complex for small businesses.
This is precisely where AI becomes transformative. Most AI applications today fall into predictable categories: utility tools for routine tasks (like Grammarly’s AI), useful assistants for specific workflows (like Claude), or embedded automation that enhances existing processes (like Cora or Fyxer.AI). These are valuable, but they don't fundamentally address how complex operations work.
What we're exploring in this newsletter is a different category of AI solutions entirely: Orchestration AI that integrates deeply into operations, orchestrates multiple workflows simultaneously, and creates visibility across different variables in real-time. Unlike tools that work in isolation, these systems observe, integrate, and – most importantly – they work proactively to close coordination loops.
This distinction matters because productivity challenges can't be solved by tools and assistants alone - we need systematic thinking & coordination, which we're now starting to see via Orchestration AI.
And nowhere is this more evident than in India's pervasive workflow vacuum. Here's how we see this playing out in practice:
Kookar: The AI chef that never enters the kitchen
Every Indian household with a cook deals with daily coordination chaos: meal planning, grocery management, health considerations, and scheduling. There's no systematic approach - just a daily push & pull that gets resolved only through the household’s constant involvement.
Kookar orchestrates this entire ecosystem through a sophisticated workflow. After understanding the household's meal preferences, health goals, and kitchen setup, AI takes over: it generates weekly meal plans that solve for variety and nutritional goals, which get shared with the family and the cook on a WhatsApp group.
The AI operates via a dedicated voice assistant that communicates with cooks in local languages to manage the cook’s workload, handle daily inventory management, and providing cooking guidance.
When groceries are needed, AI agents autonomously place orders across multiple platforms, comparing availability and prices in real-time. This transforms kitchen management from daily chaos into a systematic operation.
The cook now operates within a system where AI handles the planning and coordination. They aren't trained to become a nutritionist or supply chain expert, but work within intelligent systems that incorporate those capabilities seamlessly.
MyGenie: The construction site's new brain
Construction epitomises the workflow vacuum challenge. While supervisors manage attendance and execution of work, no one exists to think about & drive project planning, understanding dependencies, and optimize task sequencing around materials, and labor for peak efficiency.
MyGenie's AI analyses project milestones based on material costs, worker productivity, and project timelines to create optimised schedules that no human task manager could maintain across multiple sites.
This transforms construction from reactive task completion into proactive project orchestration. Workers receive optimised schedules, resource allocation guidance, and quality control protocols that incorporate cost optimisations and timeline coordination. Contractors handle more projects with better outcomes, and the complex coordination happens through intelligent systems.
The key insight is that AI handles the complex coordination while workers focus on execution. A small contractor can benefit from enterprise-grade project management - resource optimisation, and supply chain planning - without needing to master these disciplines themselves.
Robin: Your personal Chief of Staff
Another company we spoke to recently, Robin, demonstrates this thesis fairly well. Unlike traditional assistants that require constant oversight & checking in, Robin operates more like hiring a capable project manager for your household needs.
When you message Robin on WhatsApp saying "Reserve a table for 2 at Burma Burma," Robin puts that request into a well-defined workflow pipeline. To move it through the pipeline, Robin AI searches for relevant outlets, presents location options, handles the booking process, and follows through until completion. The entire coordination happens autonomously while you focus on other priorities.
Travel planning showcases Robin's project management capabilities, too. Instead of you spending hours researching destinations, comparing flights, booking hotels, and coordinating ground transportation, Robin handles the entire workflow.
Robin's approach demonstrates how AI can serve as an autonomous project manager for household tasks. Instead of requiring busy professionals to coordinate complex multi-step processes themselves, Robin manages the entire workflow from initiation to completion, handling all the systematic coordination that would otherwise fragment across multiple platforms or fall through the cracks.
Building India’s project management layer
These examples reveal a common pattern: AI isn't replacing human capabilities - it's providing the systematic coordination that was always missing. The cook still cooks, the contractor still builds, the professional still makes decisions. But now they operate within intelligent systems that handle the complex work that previously overwhelmed small operations.
This has profound implications for India's economic trajectory. With 63M+ MSMEs employing over 500M+ people, the productivity gains from systematic coordination could be transformative. Instead of requiring massive retraining or expensive management layers, AI creates the infrastructure that enables existing workers to operate at their full potential.
Traditional software forced people to adapt to systems, but AI systems adapt to people. With this, we're witnessing the emergence of a new economic infrastructure - one built on intelligent coordination rather than rigid task-masters.