How Voice AI is Reshaping BFSI in India

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Ramesh Gowda, a small business owner near Shimoga in Karnataka, needs a loan. He’s comfortable speaking Kannada, but most banking apps and helplines use English, making the process daunting. Without AI, he might wait endlessly for a Kannada-speaking agent, grow frustrated, and turn to informal lenders.

Now, with AI, a voice agent speaks to him in Kannada, asks the right loan questions, and checks eligibility using backend systems, often in a single call. This speeds up loan approvals and ensures access to finance regardless of language or location.

In India’s booming AI ecosystem, Gnani.ai has quietly emerged as a standout player in the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance) sector. Led by Co-Founder and CEO Ganesh Gopalan, the Bengaluru-based deep tech company is not just building voice AI tools; it’s reshaping how financial institutions interact with millions of customers, particularly across India’s tier-II and tier-III cities.

In an exclusive conversation with MIT SMR India, Gopalan said, “BFSI stood out early on because there was strong board-level support for AI, and was a mature adopter of customer experience solutions.”

Gnani’s BFSI journey began with collections and customer service before expanding into marketing, underwriting, and claims. Its voice agents now power workflows for some of India’s largest financial institutions, from legacy brands like Bajaj and Tata to digital-first challengers.

At the core of this transformation are Small Language Models (SLMs), optimized for real-time BFSI use. These 2.5 billion-parameter models deliver low latency, high accuracy, and domain-specific contextual understanding.

“In AI, domain depth matters,” Gopalan said.“We’ve developed SLMs for BFSI that understand the industry-specific vocabulary and nuances. Over time, they become even more effective when adapted for specific enterprises.”

One of Gnani’s signature innovations is Inya.ai, a modular platform that allows banks and insurers to plug in the best tools for their needs, whether Gnani’s own models or third-party options like OpenAI, Llama, or Mistral.

“There’s no one-size-fits-all in LLMs,” he said. “Inya.ai is fully flexible, so clients can use different models for transcription, reasoning, or summarization depending on the use case.”

Voice AI Delivers Measurable Impact

Gnani’s technology is already delivering measurable results. Its voice agents help clients recover more than a billion dollars in overdue payments by personalizing outreach based on the customer’s behavior and preferred communication channels: voice, SMS, or email.

In another instance, a bank used Gnani’s agent to cross-sell personal and small business loans, completing eligibility checks and capturing leads within a single call. On the underwriting side, AI has quadrupled productivity, boosting evaluations from five to 20 per day.

“It’s not about replacing humans. It’s about empowering them to do more, faster,” Gopalan said. 

The technology is also enabling microfinance institutions to digitize the entire loan lifecycle, from origination to disbursement, a game changer in underserved geographies.

Building for Bharat

Gnani’s philosophy is simple yet profound: “Voice is the new keyboard.” Gopalan argued that since speech is the most natural way to communicate, voice should be the primary interface for human-AI interaction.

“Globally, when people need support, they instinctively pick up the phone. Even Gen Z, often thought to prefer text, values speed above all else, and voice remains the fastest way to communicate,” he said.

In India, where digital literacy and linguistic diversity are major barriers, voice-first technology is not just convenient, it’s inclusive.

Today, 80–90% of Gnani’s work is focused on India’s tier-II and tier-III cities, where voice in native languages is not just preferred but essential. Gnani’s agents speak dozens of Indian languages, breaking down long-standing barriers to financial access.

“Our presence in these regions is deepening rapidly,” Gopalan said. “We started with CX automation, and now we’re moving into core banking processes, claims, reconciliation, and more.”

Beyond BFSI 

While BFSI remains Gnani’s anchor, its inclusion in the IndiaAI Mission is driving expansion into other critical sectors such as education and healthcare.

In education, it has developed tools that translate English video content into Indian regional languages, while preserving tone and clarity. In healthcare, its work with an NGO is reducing infant mortality by delivering voice-based reminders and health tips to new mothers in remote regions.

“These aren’t just use cases, they’re examples of how voice AI can solve real-world problems at scale,” Gopalan said.

Deep Tech With a Human Touch

Gnani’s selection under the IndiaAI Mission is not just a badge of honor; it is also a signal of trust. The company is building a 14-billion-parameter voice AI foundation model, made in India for India.

“AI is still an unsolved problem in many ways,” Gopalan said. “We’re not just API integrators, we’re building the foundation itself.”

From an initial vision presented at the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference 2009 to unveiling voice-to-voice LLMs in San Jose this year, Gnani continues to push boundaries. 

Its latest models combine reasoning, translation, and speech synthesis in a single interface, enabling more natural and intelligent conversations.

In a world where AI often feels like buzzword-driven noise, companies like Gnani.ai are proving that solving real problems, for real people, in real languages, is the most human thing AI can do.