The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has teamed up with Google Cloud to increase the adoption of ecommerce in India using generative AI.
As part of this partnership, they will launch a nationwide ‘Build for Bharat’ hackathon to foster an open ecosystem of developers, students, and startups to drive innovation within the ONDC framework.
The hackathon intends to develop solutions that democratise access to digital commerce, regardless of digital literacy, geography, or economic status, a joint statement said.
“This hackathon will serve as an ideal launchpad, enabling us to discover numerous gifted individuals and organisations with inventive concepts. This, in turn, propels the drive for innovation for Bharat by solving countless pressing challenges faced by merchants and consumers both in metro cities and smaller towns,” ONDC MD and CEO T Koshy said.
The hackathon will span three months and will offer mentoring and assistance to participants working to solve ecommerce challenges such as building better supply chain visibility, improving inventory management, creating targeted personalisation for consumers, among others.
Earlier in June also, ONDC and Google Cloud teamed up to launch an open sourced ONDC Open Commerce solution to help users and buyers onboard the ONDC platform seamlessly. The programme has been leveraged by 20 ecommerce companies as of now.
As the next step to the strategic partnership, the two will enable buyers and sellers of all sizes across the country to use Google Cloud’s generative AI tools for seamless transactions. The AI powered tools will offer features like voice commands, product descriptions and image improvement, automatic translation of catalogues in local languages, among others.
India is seeing a generative AI boom since the launch of Open AI’s ChatGPT. Last week, Google also announced that it would add its generative AI capabilities to ‘Search’ in India.
Meanwhile, the government-backed ONDC has been constantly expanding since its launch last year, onboarding new players and entering new segments. Most recently, the likes of Pepsico and Ola joined the open network.
Last week, ONDC also said that the number of restaurants on the platform surged to 50,000 from just 500 in February.
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