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Mint
4 hours ago
- Business
- Mint
Creators find a new calling: corporate AI trainers
Ansh Mehra, 27, is on the verge of reaching 1 million followers across Instagram and YouTube. But unlike other influencers, the computer science engineering graduate, who once worked at Swiggy, isn't worried about follower count. Instead, he has found a booming niche: artificial intelligence training for top corporations. India's largest private financial services group HDFC, Reliance Industries Ltd and British energy conglomerate Shell are among the world's top 75 firms by market value that are increasingly enlisting experts with deep AI knowledge to train their employees. Surging demand for their skills allows creators and consultants like Mehra to secure up to ₹25 lakh in a few weeks. Mehra has been running his AI training venture, The Cutting Edge School, for the past three years. He is currently conducting a workshop for over 1,000 employees for a top retail firm–he refused to identify the client, citing a non-disclosure agreement. 'Most companies that come to us have three key problems that they want solved: one, their employees are still using outdated tools for functions such as marketing, content creation and outreach; two, most of them are not using AI the way it should be; and three, giving the right prompts to ensure that privacy and security of individuals is maintained," Mehra said. Demand for AI upskilling has exploded globally as the technology becomes part of corporate workflow across sectors. India, too, will need more than 1 million skilled AI workers within the next 12 months to keep up with the pace of AI adoption by companies and for the country to achieve its target of generating $35 billion of domestic product by 2047, a report by the ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity) said earlier this month. AI tools to strategy In most cases, trainers are identified because of their social media content or CXO references based on years of experience in AI. Courses offered cost ₹6-25 lakh for courses running for four to six weeks, and the number of participating employees can go as high as 1,000. These courses mostly cover primers on the fundamentals of AI, and hands-on guides on how to make the most of popular tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, Microsoft's Copilot, Adobe's Firefly, and more. Companies are separately upskilling individual leaders to gain a deeper understanding of AI policy, lessons from lawsuits around the world, and strategies for how the technology can either add value or reduce costs. These courses typically cost ₹5,000-25,000 per person per week. Mehra's courses typically run for four weeks, and his 25-member team conducts 12 of them in a year—but aims to do more as demand ramps up. 'There is deep demand from companies for AI upskilling, and this demand is unlikely to die down," said Kashyap Kompella, a veteran AI consultant. 'The courses range from offering an introduction into the variety of AI tools available for various tasks, understanding their limitations and scope, the ethics and legality of it, and their applicability across the board—be it data analytics or for content generation." Kompella is conducting a six-week immersive AI training programme for more than 5,000 employees of a top Indian financial services firm. 'When used by capable individuals, AI can significantly enhance both personal and team productivity," he said. 'However, its impact depends heavily on how well users can collaborate with the technology. Companies are waking up to this today, and that is leading to heavy demand from conglomerates." Shell cited its silent period in response to Mint's query, but acknowledged that the company is working with external consultants for AI upskilling across functions. HDFC Mutual Fund, Reliance Retail and Nestle did not respond to emailed queries. Mid-career demand Sridev Ramesh, 29, who cofounded AI developer and engineering content platform 100xEngineers, offers courses to mid-career corporate professionals keen to learn how best to use popular AI tools to augment existing work in professions such as digital marketing, content generation and more. 'The biggest takers for our AI upskilling courses are aged 30-35, and are mid-career corporate professionals from across domains who are either trying to catch up on AI skills, or gain a deeper understanding of how it can affect their work," he said. 'We just began our fifth cohort—which has about 200 takers. While students pay about ₹1.1 lakh for this six-month online-only course, working professionals are charged up to ₹1.4 lakh for it." While Ramesh, who holds a distance learning degree in astrophysics engineering from The Open University, UK, has offered custom AI upskilling programmes to companies, he prefers the open registration route where his courses are not tied to any particular firm. 'We offered an internal upskilling course for using AI for digital marketing use cases at Netflix. But, most companies need a customized programme for a set number of employees—we prefer to offer our own course, and there is a huge demand for them at our end," said Ramesh. 'We currently limit registrations at up to 200 candidates per cohort because that is our bandwidth—all the training is provided by my cofounder and I." Queries emailed by Mint to Netflix remained unanswered till press time. Varun Mayya, 32, provides content and marketing courses through his agency Aeos Media. In the past year, the firm has offered AI video creation training and consultancy services to Godrej Properties, Amazon Prime Video and two major media conglomerates, among others, he said. Godrej Properties and Amazon have yet to respond to Mint's emailed queries. 'Our multi-week AI training programmes can extend up to ₹15 lakh for an internal corporate session, depending on the number of attendees and what is expected from us," Mayya said. 'We only stick to our area of expertise in AI training—AI content generation and marketing." Creators and consultants say the demand for AI upskilling is here to stay. 'We're only just discovering AI, and the field itself is actively evolving. Going forward, demand for education is certain to sustain for long—and those making the early moves can either delve deeper to offer greater expertise and certification in the long run," said 100xEngineers' Ramesh. According to Kompella, CXOs 'are only beginning to realize that understanding AI is imperative, and it is better done sooner than later". Surface-level training There is, however, some scepticism. Jibu Elias, India head for responsible computing at Mozilla, said the generative AI hype is driving corporate leaders to AI training and many courses largely skim the 'surface level usage of commercial tools". 'Tech companies also have vested interests in getting future users familiarised with their ecosystems early on—we've seen this playbook before," said Elias. 'But, what we're likely to see going forward is a shift from basic tool-training toward deeper education in context-specific AI reasoning, ethical judgment, and system integration. The role of the AI trainer isn't disappearing, but it will need to evolve just as fast as the tools themselves." Mehra of The Cutting Edge School, however, does not expect demand for corporate AI trainers to cool anytime soon. 'In most of our training courses, we see that established corporate employees are still sketchy on the best ways to use AI," he said. 'As long as the field of AI keeps evolving, those on the cutting-edge of the technology will always find demand from larger corporations, seeking help with upskilling their workforce."
Time of India
3 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Reliance Industries to evaluate impact of EU sanctions on Russian oil trade
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) said on Friday it will evaluate the latest round of sanctions imposed by European Union member states targeting Russia's oil and energy revenues , including restrictions that extend to petroleum products refined from Russian crude in third countries -affecting Indian exports. India's crude imports from Russia were valued at $50.3 billion in FY25, accounting for more than a third of the country's total crude bill of $143.1 billion. Indian refiners, including RIL, process this crude and export petroleum products globally, including to the EU. "There will be a wind-down period, we hope, and we'll need to assess the scope of the sanctions-especially how they define products," said Srinivas Tuttagunta , Chief Operating Officer (Supply and Trading), RIL. "In previous instances, definitions allowed for products that were 'substantially transformed'." India exported petroleum products worth $5 billion to the EU last year. Tuttagunta said RIL would review the final text of the sanctions before taking a formal position. "We are quite diversified," he said. "Light distillates primarily go to the US and other destinations, while middle distillates head to Europe. But we also have markets in Africa, Singapore, the Middle East and others." He added that should Europe lose access to certain distillates, margins could rise sharply. "That has been the trend historically, as we saw in 2022 during the initial Russian sanctions." "We'll wait to see the full details. But overall, margins could be constructive again, depending on how the situation evolves," he said.
United News of India
5 days ago
- Business
- United News of India
Reliance Industries Ltd Posts Q1 FY26 Consolidated Profit Of Rs 26,994 Crore
Mumbai, July 19 (UNI) Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) officially announced that it has posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 26,994 crore for the first quarter which ended in June 2025 (Q1) of the financial year 2026 (FY26), marking a sharp 78.3% rise from Rs 15,138 crore in the same period last year. Sequentially, the company's profit grew 39.1% from Rs 19,407 crore in Q4 FY25. Consolidated revenue from operations for the conglomerate stood at Rs 2,73,252 crore for the quarter, which is 6% more compared to Rs 2,57,823 crore year-on-year (Y-o-Y), according to a company statement today. Reliance Industries Limited Chairman & Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said, 'Reliance has begun FY26 with a robust, all-round operational and financial performance. Consolidated EBITDA for Q1 FY26 improved strongly from a year-ago period, despite significant volatility in global macros. During the quarter, energy markets encountered heightened uncertainty, with sharp fluctuations in crude prices. Performance was supported by improvement in fuel and downstream product margins. Natural decline in natural gas production from Krishna-Godavari D6 resulted in marginally lower EBITDA for the oil and gas segment," Mukesh Ambani said. "The company's retail business customer base expanded to 358 million and the focus is on strengthening its portfolio of our own FMCG brands. Jio has scaled newer heights during the quarter including crossing 200 million 5G subscribers and 20 million home connections. Jio AirFiber is now the largest Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) service provider in the world, with a base of 7.4 million subscribers," Mukesh Ambani said. Mukesh Ambani laid out an ambitious target based on the company's performance and growth plans, saying, "Reliance will continue its stellar track record of doubling every 4 to 5 years." UNI XC BM
Mint
6 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Reliance Retail Q1 results: Profit jumps 28.3% to ₹3,271 crore
New Delhi: Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd, Reliance Industries Ltd's retail arm, on Friday reported a consolidated profit of ₹ 3,271 crore for the April-June first quarter, up 28.3% from a year ago. Revenue from operations grew 11.3% year-on-year to ₹ 73,720 crore. Reported ebitda at ₹ 6,381 crore was up 12.7% year-on-year, while ebitda margin improved further by 20 bps year-on-year to 8.7%. Ebitda, a measure of core operations, stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Reliance Retail operates across categories such as grocery, consumer electronics, fashion and lifestyle, and online commerce. All segments performed well, with market leading performance in grocery and fashion. Consumer electronics and devices, however, were impacted due to the early onset of monsoons, the company said in a statement Friday. Reliance Retail expanded its store network with 388 new store openings during the first quarter, taking its total store count to 19,592. Its area under operation at 77.6 million in the first quarter was up marginally from the preceding March quarter but down 4.6% year-on-year. Online commerce platform, JioMart, continued to expand quick hyperlocal deliveries, registering a 175% year-on-year growth in daily orders during the first quarter. 'Reliance Retail delivered strong growth in revenue and profits, powered by improved efficiencies, innovative formats, a sharper product mix, and continued investments in technology and customer experience,' Isha M. Ambani, executive director, Reliance Retail, said. The company's fashion and lifestyle business witnessed growth in first-quarter revenue and ebitda driven by new store formats and strong performance of its in-house brands. The company's consumer electronics business reported overall growth, but sales of air conditioners were impacted due to the early onset of monsoon. Reliance Retail on Friday also announced the acquisition of the home appliances brand Kelvinator for India from the Swedish manufacturer Electrolux AB after holding manufacturing and distribution rights for the brand since 2019. The company's online fashion platform, AJIO, launched Rush, its 4-hour delivery service, during the first quarter. The service is live in six cities, matching rivals such as Myntra that also offer quick deliveries. The brand's Luxe platform continued to grow and launched several brands during the quarter, taking its portfolio to 875 brands. 'With faster deliveries, the initiative will further improve customers' shopping experience on the platform. The initiative is delivering better unit economics driven by higher average bill value and lower returns,' Reliance Retail said.
India.com
6 days ago
- Business
- India.com
Good news for Mukesh Ambani, Isha Ambani, this company earns Rs 32710000000 as…, India's richest man says…
Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), the retail arm of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, reported a 28.3% year-on-year increase in profit after tax, reaching Rs 3,271 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2025. This growth was driven by strong revenue performance across all segments. In the same quarter last year, the company had posted a profit after tax of Rs 2,549 crore, as per Reliance Industries Ltd's (RIL) regulatory filing. Gross revenue for Q1 FY26 stood at Rs 84,171 crore, marking an 11.3% rise from Rs 75,615 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. Reliance Retail's Revenue Reliance Retail's revenue from operations in the first quarter was at Rs 73,720 crore compared to Rs 66,260 crore in the year-ago period, up 11.3 per cent. All segments performed well, with market leading performance in grocery and fashion. Consumer electronics and devices were impacted because of early onset of monsoons, but recovery is underway, the company said. In the quarter, the retail business expanded its store network with 388 new store openings, taking the total store count to 19,592 with area under operation at 77.6 million sq. ft. 'The registered customer base grew to 358 million, making Reliance Retail one of the most preferred retailers in the country,' it said, adding that JioMart continued to expand quick hyper-local deliveries registering 68 per cent Q-o-Q growth and 175 per cent Y-o-Y growth of daily orders. Mukesh Ambani, Isha Ambani On Reliance Retail Performance 'Retail's business … customer base expanded to 358 million, along with significant improvement across operating metrics. We are focusing on strengthening the portfolio of our own FMCG brands, which resonate with the tastes of Indian consumers,' Reliance Industries Ltd Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh D. Ambani said. He further said, 'Our retail business continues to enhance its ability to fulfil everyday as well as specialized needs of all customer cohorts, through a multi-channel approach.' Commenting on the performance, Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd Executive Director, Isha M. Ambani said, 'Reliance Retail delivered resilient performance during this quarter, driven by our relentless focus on operational excellence, geographical expansion and sharper product portfolio. Our continued investments in cutting-edge technologies and differentiated product offerings have enabled us to serve our customers better and scale with agility.' In the consumer electronics segment, Reliance Retail said the business achieved steady growth, driven by an average bill value growth, up 26 per cent. However, AC sales were impacted due to early onset of monsoon. JioMart Digital business delivered strong growth, led by expansion of its brand portfolio and merchant partner base. The acquisition of Kelvinator brand IP for India will strengthen its own brands play across categories in consumer durables, it added. (With Inputs From PTI)
