Only 20 per cent of the 530 million Indian internet users consume content in English. According to a recent report by research and consulting firm RedSeer, 260 million Indian users are "monetizable". Nearly 210 million of these users, with an annual spending power of $300 billion, prefer digital content in vernacular languages. "India has added Internet users at 8X speed in the last 10 years driven by small towns and villages, not by large cities," the report stated. Most of such people used to go to an agent when they wanted to book a train ticket for their next Vaishno Devi trip with their family, wanted an instance plan and wanted someone to help them with a purchase.

Although conversational AI has been in the headlines for years now, B2C applications of this technology are still in their infancy. I believe that's going to change this year, and we're going to see conversational interfaces replace more websites, mobile apps and contact centers than ever before -- even as the burgeoning industry faces new challenges. I work with large enterprises looking to add conversational AI to their customer experience, so I've seen the signs that a boom is on the way. One strong indicator is the amount of funding pouring into the space. We've seen a growing number of VCs investing in conversational AI startups, with some luminaries -- like the founder of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son -- focusing almost entirely on AI.