Flipkart is expanding its artificial intelligence ambitions by developing specialised large language models (LLMs) tailored for e-commerce, with the company revealing that AI tools are already generating up to 40 per cent of its code.

Speaking to Moneycontrol, Flipkart Chief Product and Technology Officer Balaji Thiagarajan said the company is building what he described as an “agentic e-commerce platform” powered by a combination of advanced external AI systems and proprietary models designed for specific business functions.

AI Becoming Central To Flipkart’s Operations

Thiagarajan said artificial intelligence is now deeply integrated across multiple areas of Flipkart’s business, including product discovery, conversational shopping, seller services and internal productivity tools.

The company has deployed more than 250 AI models across its ecosystem as it seeks to automate processes and improve customer experiences.

“We have deployed over 250 models across our ecosystem,” Thiagarajan said.

One of the most significant applications has been software development, where AI is increasingly assisting engineers with coding tasks.

“Around 35-40 per cent of our code is already generated by AI tools,” he said.

The figure reflects a broader trend across the technology industry, where companies are increasingly relying on AI-powered coding assistants to accelerate software development.

Flipkart Focuses On Specialised AI Models

While general-purpose AI systems have become widely adopted, Thiagarajan argued that companies seeking competitive advantages will need to build models tailored to their specific industries and workflows.

According to him, generic AI models alone are unlikely to deliver the level of specialisation required for complex e-commerce operations.

“To specialise for those tasks, you have to build your own models. That’s the secret sauce,” he said.

Flipkart is therefore investing in proprietary e-commerce-focused LLMs designed to handle specific functions across the platform.

The company believes its access to large volumes of commerce data and internal engineering expertise can help create AI systems better suited to its requirements than off-the-shelf alternatives.

Future AI Strategy Will Combine Multiple Models

Thiagarajan said the future of enterprise AI will not be dominated by a single model but instead by a combination of specialised systems working together.

As a result, Flipkart expects to continue using external AI tools alongside models developed in-house.

“The future of AI will be a mixture of experts… many of the other experts will be models we build ourselves. That’s where our differentiation comes from – our data, our engineering capabilities and our ability to develop specialised ecommerce LLMs for specific tasks,” he said.

The approach mirrors a growing trend among technology companies that are combining frontier AI models with domain-specific systems built around their own datasets.

Company Prioritising AI Investment Over Immediate Returns

Despite rising concerns across the technology sector about the cost of artificial intelligence, Thiagarajan said Flipkart remains focused on long-term investment rather than immediate returns.

Several major companies have recently reassessed AI spending. Ride-hailing platform Uber and Walmart, Flipkart’s parent company, have both reportedly scaled back certain employee-facing AI initiatives due to cost considerations.

Flipkart, however, is continuing to invest heavily in the technology.

“We’re not overly concerned about the ROI of AI right now because we’re still in investment mode,” Thiagarajan said.

He added that the company is spending significant time on governance-related issues as AI adoption expands.

“Where we spend much more time today is on AI governance – content moderation, response fidelity, human-in-the-loop systems and reinforcement learning,” he said.

Competition Intensifies In India’s AI Market

Flipkart’s expanding AI strategy comes at a time when competition among technology companies is intensifying.

AI-powered coding tools such as Claude Code and Codex have gained significant traction globally, while companies increasingly look to automate software development and business processes.

At the same time, Amazon has announced plans to strengthen its presence in India through a major investment programme.

The company recently unveiled plans to invest USD 13 billion in India by 2030 to expand its cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure, taking its total planned investment in the country to USD 48 billion.

As India’s digital economy grows, companies such as Flipkart are increasingly viewing proprietary AI capabilities as a key differentiator, with specialised models expected to play a central role in the next phase of competition in e-commerce and technology.

Long or Short, get news the way you like. No ads. No redirections. Download Newspin and Stay Alert, The CSR Journal Mobile app, for fast, crisp, clean updates!

App Store –  https://apps.apple.com/in/app/newspin/id6746449540 

Google Play Store – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inventifweb.newspin&pcampaignid=web_share