New Delhi, March 12 -- What do four Indian companies - two edtech platforms, a fitness tech startup and a cloud tech company - have in common? The short answer: They are developing smaller-scale artificial intelligence tools to provide personalised offerings to users.

While these and other Indian companies go all in on AI, many are developing and customising small language models (SLMs) because off-the-shelf AI tools either fall short of their needs or are too wide-ranging for their functions, experts told Mint.

Aakash Educational Services Ltd, Physics Wallah, Healthify and Zoho are among those betting big on such tools, also known as internal foundational AI models. Aakash, which coaches students for professional entrance examinations,...