Nimit Jain

I have listened to your concerns and I understand your sentiment around this. I want to add more context to my earlier post. The document currently circulating is an outdated internal training document. It is not an HR policy. That said, it contained an incorrect line about bindi/tilak that should never have been written and does not reflect our values or actual practice. When we discovered this on February 17, well before this became a public conversation, we immediately removed it. But I should have caught this earlier. As Founder and CEO, the responsibility for such lapses is mine. I have asked my team to bring all such materials under stricter review, and I will personally ensure this is addressed going forward. We are also looking into how this found its way into our training content. Let me be absolutely clear. Lenskart does not and will never restrict any form of respectful religious expression. This includes bindi, tilak, or any such symbols of faith. Our team members have always been, and will always be, free to express their beliefs with pride. I also want to thank everyone who raised this. Your voice helps us improve and stay true to what we stand for.

Clarifying a few things, starting with the MoU. Are you taking taxpayer money? No. The MoU signed with the UP Government is structured as a public-private partnership. It does not involve any cost to the taxpayers of Uttar Pradesh. On the contrary, it brings investment into the state. The project will be executed in phases, with support from external investment partners. We have not taken any money, any GPUs, or any other form of support from the Government. The only part of this MoU that involves citizens is that they'll receive free access to AI, in their own language and through familiar interfaces, via AI Commons. Is your revenue ₹42.9 lakh? No. This is a bug in Google’s AI, which has confused Puch AI with another company called Pucho AI. The ₹42.9 lakh revenue figure belongs to Pucho AI, not Puch AI. Puch AI’s revenue is not public. What’s your valuation/annual revenue? Are you bootstrapped? We’ll share those details when the time is right. For now, as a private company, we’re not required to make our valuation or revenue public. But, if you’re curious, we're not bootstrapped. We’re a well-funded startup. Do you have a foundational model of your own? No, and we do not believe it is necessary for our mission to build one at this stage. What is your mission? We want to bring AI to everyone in India. Today, many people already use tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, but millions still cannot. Your parents, shopkeepers, drivers, and many others are being left out because AI, in its current form, is not built for them. What exactly is Puch AI doing? Puch AI is building the domestic consumer AI offering for the masses. We're bringing AI to people through simple, familiar interfaces like WhatsApp and voice calls, so that it is easy to use even for those who cannot type and prefer to interact through voice. Why don’t you have your own app? We understand the frustration people feel about this, and at times it is frustrating for us as well (currently fighting Meta on the WhatsApp policy). But so far, this has been a conscious choice. A new app becomes one more thing to learn and one more barrier for the millions of people who are currently not using AI. Try teaching your parents a new app! So are you asking me to not use ChatGPT or other AIs in the name of nationalism? No, not at all. People should use whatever AI works best for them. Our effort is simply to expand access to AI by bringing it to millions who, today, are unable to use the existing tools. Is Puch AI just a wrapper? Wrappers are generally defined as making API calls to AI providers like OpenAI and Anthropic. So no, Puch AI is not a wrapper. We do not use any APIs. We have built our entire infrastructure in-house on top of open-source models, and engineered it for the Indian context. However, if you define a wrapper as any company that does not have a foundational model pretrained from scratch, then yes, Puch AI is a wrapper. What is the point of Puch AI if you haven’t even built a model? The problem is data. Today, ChatGPT and Gemini are the default go-to AI apps for almost everyone in India who uses AI. As more people use them, these companies keep getting more and more data to improve their models. That data will never help Sarvam, BharatGen, or any other domestic AI model builder. More importantly, the bulk of India will end up accessing information through OpenAI or Google: their systems and their narratives that may ultimately be shaped by foreign actors. With Puch AI, we are trying to build sovereign distribution, so that India has at least one alternative, no matter how hopeless it may seem to compete with OpenAI or Google’s marketing. Puch AI seems relatively simple. I can build it in a weekend. Are you even doing anything? The choice of a simple interface is deliberate, but the underlying infrastructure is far from simple. Happy to give ₹50 lakh to anyone who can build it in a weekend, match our performance in Indian languages, and offer it for free at our consumer scale. How was your experience building for India? It is a very interesting situation, where the Government understands the importance and wants to do good, but it becomes difficult to do any good when so many bad actors are rooting for you to fail. Thousands of paid accounts are ready to try to shape narratives to fit their own political agenda. Everything from Community Notes to actual news articles and journalism gets weaponized against you, because your failure gets more views. Will you keep fighting? Not sure. Quite exhausted. Maybe this is the time to sign off.