Inc42 CTO Summit Tackles AI Scaling Challenges in India

Inc42 convened its first CTO Summit 2026 in Bengaluru on September 30, gathering more than 200 senior technology leaders and speakers. The event focused on how India's technology ecosystem is building and scaling in the era of artificial intelligence.

The summit featured CTOs and leaders from prominent Indian tech startups like Meesho, Swiggy, Flipkart, and Rapido. Discussions centered on AI adoption, engineering productivity, infrastructure, and the systems necessary for development at India's scale. Sessions moved beyond AI experimentation to address the practicalities of AI in production, including the economics of AI workloads, data quality, verification, resilience, and the evolving role of engineering teams.

Speakers explored AI's impact on product development and user interaction. Swiggy's CTO Madhusudhan Rao shared insights on using AI agents to extend commerce beyond their app, while Flipkart's CPTO Balaji Thiagarajan discussed the shift from keyword-based search to systems understanding consumer intent. The summit also highlighted the engineering organization's adaptation to AI-assisted coding, emphasizing the growing importance of design, review, and testing.

A key theme was building for India's scale, addressing challenges like diverse mobile devices, multiple languages, and intermittent connectivity, all while managing infrastructure and inference costs. Three technical demos showcased real-world AI applications, with companies like Zomato, Rapido, and Razorpay presenting their approaches to AI deployment and engineering efficiency.