MC EXCLUSIVE MC Exclusive: Forget AI stocks. The real winners will be AI users, says Madhu Kela

Companies that harness AI to improve efficiency and boost earnings could be a big wealth-creation theme in India, he said

Artificial Intelligence may not just be the next technology revolution — it could be the next earnings revolution. According to Madhusudan Kela, Director at MK Ventures, the biggest stock market theme in the coming years from an Indian market perspective won’t be the companies building AI, but those using it smartly. “AI adoption can dramatically alter cost structures and boost profitability across sectors — from financials to drug discovery to SaaS — over the next three to four years,” Kela said in the Diwali Blockbuster edition of The Wealth Formula with Mahalakshmi.

“There’s one thing I’m studying very keenly — which companies will disproportionately benefit from AI usage, not those making chips or models,” Kela said. “The scale of that benefit and the operating leverage it brings could be dramatically different over the next three to four years.”

Drawing parallels to the early 2000s, he said AI could become the new internet moment. “If I had told you in 2000 that one word — ‘internet’ — would create $25 trillion in value, you wouldn’t have believed it. Google, Facebook, everything is a derivative of that. AI will be the same,” he said. “This is not a passing bubble — AI usage is here to stay.”

Kela believes the real winners won’t necessarily be AI hardware or software firms but traditional companies that harness AI to boost margins. “Financial companies — especially large banks like HDFC and ICICI — will see massive gains from AI adoption over the next three years,” he said. “It can significantly reduce cost-to-income ratios and improve productivity.”

He added that the opportunity is company-specific, not sectoral. “There will be ‘A’ companies — proactive and progressive — and ‘B’ companies that wait for change. For the latter, it’ll be a Kodak moment. They won’t get a chance,” he warned.

Kela revealed his own firm already uses AI to generate company research reports in just 13 minutes, achieving 80–90% of an analyst’s accuracy. “Analysts won’t lose jobs but will need to reskill. AI lets anyone become an expert across sectors. The edge will shift to those who use it smartly,” he said.

While India currently has barely ₹30,000 crore worth of listed AI-linked market cap out of a total of $5 trillion — compared with vastly higher levels in the US and China — Kela believes the productivity revolution is already underway. “Even in the last six months, we’ve seen AI enhance efficiency in ways we didn’t imagine. This is a secular trend — it will reshape how companies operate and how investors value them,” he said.

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