Athira Sethu
Kochi, 26 May 2025
Indian AI firm Sarvam AI has recently introduced its new language model, Sarvam-M, which can be used for Indian languages. The company was initially overjoyed with this accomplishment but soon caught flak over social media. Many wondered about the quality and utility of this model, particularly as opposed to other international AI software.
Among the most vocal detractors was tech investor Deedy Das. He stated that Sarvam-M was not that impressive and had hardly any downloads in its early days. He even compared it to an open-source version created by two students in South Korea that had much more users. For him, Indian AI firms are more concerned with being hip than addressing actual issues.
However, not all shared this harsh opinion. Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu intervened in defense of Sarvam AI. Posting on X (formerly Twitter), he stated that no great product hits the ground running. He clarified that even at Zoho, their own successful products took time to acquire users and traction.
In Sarvam.ai’s defense, let me say that there is no product that we have ever created which was ever an overnight success,” Vembu said.
“Even when we were the first mover in a new territory and we had done immense technical work, we only achieved slow-moving traction.
Vembu advised Sarvam to continue working and not lose heart over early disparagement. He opines that immediate success is not needed and that something worthwhile develops over time.
Others from Sarvam team also chimed in. They indicated that the model was unjustly criticized without first trying it out. One of the team members noted that some critics have huge social media fan bases but didn’t spare any time to try out the product before creating negative reviews.
Sarvam-M has been defined as a hybrid AI model that specializes in Indian languages, math, and programming. It employs sophisticated training steps and is now open to an API and Hugging Face, an AI model platform.
In summary, even though the launch of Sarvam AI received intense criticism, it received intense backing from tech leaders such as Sridhar Vembu, who reminded everyone that success indeed comes with patience, effort, and time.
