Moneycontrol Pro Panorama | When Artificial Intelligence gets real

The AI whirlwind is gaining strength.

Dear Reader,

The Panorama newsletter is sent to Moneycontrol Pro subscribers on market days. It offers easy access to stories published on Moneycontrol Pro and gives a little extra by setting out a context or an event or trend that investors should keep track of.

Put on your Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses and merely say, “Hey Meta, start recording.” Voila, your glasses will capture every single move through the day and better still, will edit, enhance and transform the scenes into a real time cinematic story! No cameras, no editing software, just a simple voice command to capture your daily life! This is artificial intelligence (AI) in action.

Media reports cite another development where Meta has unveiled a wristband that uses AI to interpret muscle signals. This enables users to control devices with subtle movements or even just the intent!

To be sure, the AI whirlwind is gaining strength. It is sweeping through our lives, driving much-desired productivity and efficiency while also disrupting industries. It is reshaping the job market with the threat of rising unemployment as machines replace not just physical jobs -- as did the robots -- but even decision-making.

The management narratives of technology companies highlight billions of dollars of investment into developing AI tools, using them for their own productivity improvement or integrating them into services and solutions offered to clients. For instance, Infosys, that declared its June quarter results on Wednesday, attributed its improved realisations to adoption of its enterprise AI platform. Besides, the management alluded its success in winning deals to its “good offerings on Enterprise AI, especially Agentic AI, wins in vendor consolidation deals, and strength in cloud and data”, says Madhuchanda Dey from MCPro Research in this article.

On a much larger scale, search engine Google’s AI Overviews (blurbs that summarise one’s search request), are driving revenues higher. Paid clicks were up 4 percent year on year, the company said in a post-results call with analysts on Wednesday. That said, Google’s spends on data centres in 2025 has quadrupled from what it was in 2020, “when AI was a glimmer in Silicon Valley’s eye,” points out this FT article (only for MCPro subscribers). Rivals like Meta Platforms and OpenAI are cash rich and investing hand over fist to win the AI race in various walks of life.

Companies, be it in technology, services and manufacturing have little choice but to integrate AI in their operations for efficiency. For the individual, it is a matter of convenience, comfort or a mere fashion statement.

The need for AI models has in turn led to rise in demand for data centres. The Chart of the Day in today’s edition highlights the surge in demand for data centres that is supporting huge capital flows (Rs 2 trillion over the next five to seven years) in this segment.

In all this hype around AI, there are concerns over how data security, privacy, job losses and most importantly, the threat of lower creativity and human interaction could pan out. It’s hard to tell if such negatives would snowball into a larger crisis down the line.

Investing insights from our research team

Brigade Hotel Ventures: Does the IPO offer a good investment opportunity?

Dr Reddy’s: Near-term growth outlook is opaque

Ideaforge Technology: Better execution key to unlocking stock potential

Tata Consumer Q1 FY26: Stable revenue, profit growth despite margin headwinds

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Technical Picks: IPCALAB, VIJAYA, LXCHEM, RECLTD.

Vatsala Kamat
Moneycontrol Pro