How startups are using AI agents to scale quickly

What if your next business partner wasn’t a human, but an AI agent that could handle operations, make data-driven decisions, and help scale your company in record time? Sounds futuristic? Not anymore. In the heart of India’s bustling startup ecosystem, a quiet yet radical transformation is underway. Artificial Intelligence, once a distant promise, is now a game-changing force, empowering startups to scale faster, think smarter, and operate more efficiently.

New-age startups are like speedboats amongst giant cruise ships. They’re fast, nimble, and great at navigating choppy waters. Yet, navigating alone is rarely the best strategy. Collaboration is key to staying afloat and striving ahead. Whether it’s partnering with larger companies or leveraging shared solutions and expertise, exploring together can yield great results.

Mint’s recent All About AI episode focused on exactly this—how knowledge-sharing, mentorship, and partnerships can help startups sail through the complexities of business operations and scale effectively. This insightful session featured esteemed industry experts, including Arundhati Bhattacharya, President and CEO, Salesforce South Asia, Sanket Atal, SVP & MD – Operations & Technology at Salesforce India, and Jayesh Govindrajan, EVP – Salesforce AI, along with five shortlisted startup founders traversing the AI landscape. Watch the full episode below,

AI Pitchfield: Building an AI-Powered Startup Community

“We started interacting with startups three years back, not to create another platform, but to build a community where people could exchange ideas, find out what works and what doesn’t, and collaborate to develop their game further,” Arundhati Bhattacharya explains. What began as a small initiative has now expanded into a thriving network of nearly 350 startups.

The challenge was clear: startups want to embrace AI but aren’t always sure where or how to begin. That’s where Salesforce steps in, offering mentorship, courtesy licenses, and a stage to showcase AI-driven innovations. The result? A high-stakes competition designed to push the boundaries of AI application in the startup world, with a grand prize of $100,000.

This grand competition called upon AI-based pre-seed, seed, and series A startups in India and ASEAN to pitch their companies to an esteemed jury. Sanket Atal shared, “The idea was to catalyse the startup ecosystem. Salesforce has been on an AI journey for quite some time, doing really, really well. With the introduction of Agentic AI, we thought it’d be an awesome opportunity for us to see how the startups in India could fare”. Talking about the format of the competition, he further said, “We wanted startups to think outside the box, without putting any guardrails on what they could develop or how they would develop it.”

Solving India’s Biggest Challenges with AI

AI is more than just a business tool—it’s a dynamic solution with the potential to adapt, scale, and address a wide array of issues in a diverse and populous country like India. Arundhati Bhattacharya emphasises that India’s vast diversity is not a challenge but an advantage when it comes to AI development. “The more diverse the learning dataset, the better solution you can expect from AI,” she explains, highlighting how the nation’s unique demographic and economic landscape can serve as a powerful training ground for AI models.

Drawing from her experience in the banking sector, she recalls one of the biggest hurdles she faced – reaching India’s 600,000 villages with just 24,000 bank branches. “To ensure financial inclusion, expanding physical infrastructure wasn’t the answer; instead, the real breakthrough came through mobile technology, which brought banking services to millions of previously unbanked individuals. Similarly, AI can bridge gaps where manual services struggle,” says Bhattacharya. Several industries are poised to experience the enormous potential of AI, tapping which can not only translate to business benefit but also trigger a shift in the way the society functions as a whole. This belief in AI’s transformative power led to the conceptualisation of AI Pitchfield, a platform designed to identify and support startups that are solving some of India’s most pressing challenges through artificial intelligence. By fostering innovation in AI, AI Pitchfield aims to redefine how industries operate—whether it’s improving access to financial services, optimising supply chains, or revolutionising customer interactions.

The Frontrunners Driving Innovation

Among the many AI-driven Indian startups competing at the event, five stood out with their groundbreaking ideas – from marketing and customer engagement to finance and security, these AI-led startups are solving some of the most pressing business challenges. Trupeer.AI is tackling the ever-growing demand for high-quality content by leveraging generative AI, making it seamless for companies to create and distribute impactful marketing materials. Meanwhile, Nektar.AI is addressing the complexity of customer relationship management, sifting through scattered business communications to extract critical insights and enhance engagement strategies.

In finance, AI is not just simplifying but transforming decision-making. On one hand, Altius is simplifying investment and insurance decisions, and on the other Maximor is transforming financial accounting through AI-powered automation, reducing the burden of repetitive tasks.

However, as AI becomes more embedded in critical systems, reliability is paramount—something Inspeq.AI is tackling by building a robust trust layer to ensure AI applications function with accuracy and accountability.

Each of these startups is a testament to how AI is no longer just a support function—but becoming the backbone of innovation, driving efficiency, intelligence, and trust across industries.

AI That Doesn’t Just Think—It Acts

As more companies start integrating agentic AI in their business operations, they are able to unlock hidden opportunities and tap into unexplored possibilities. Unlike traditional AI that sticks to one job, these intelligent digital assistants are multitasking pros. They don’t just analyse data; they create content, automate workflows, and execute tasks with minimal human intervention.

“Startups can leverage AI not just to automate tasks but to redefine the way entire industries operate. What used to be built, distributed, and deployed as software services can now be realised as assistants for humans—as smart, autonomous agents,” explains Jayesh Govindrajan. This means startups no longer need to build complex software solutions from scratch and can directly leverage AI agents to power their operations. Consequently, the entry barrier becomes lower and the complexities become simpler.

A Bold New Era

The evolution of industries—and societies—hinges on pushing boundaries, challenging norms, and creating smarter, more efficient solutions. By identifying and supporting startups at the forefront of AI innovation, initiatives like AI Pitchfield ensure that disruptive ideas don’t just remain concepts but turn into real-world solutions that drive progress. As the episode drew to a close, Arundhati Bhattacharya’s words echoed: “We’re not just talking about hypothetical solutions. The future is unfolding right now.” The startups that participated weren’t simply pitching ideas; they were actively building the future. We are already riding a powerful wave of AI-powered innovation. It would be interesting to watch where it takes us next.