Startups that offer agent AI solutions are currently seeing an increase in demand from small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and growing startups.
So far, demand has been mainly generated from large tech companies that are actively employing agent AI. Currently, most B2B startups offering agent AI solutions receive more than 20-30% of demand from startups, compared to under 5% at the start of the year.
In particular, Agent AI is simply an AI (AI) system that can perform complex tasks with minimal or no human supervision. Ganesh Gopalan, co-founder and CEO of Gnani AI, observed that traditionally AI agents and workflow automation are considered capital-intensive and out of reach for small players. “But this idea is changing rapidly,” he added to FE that small businesses are beginning to recognize the specific ROI of intelligent automation.
Approximately 30% of the company's demand for INYA, the DIY-no-code multimodal agent AI platform, comes from small and medium-sized businesses. The company also claims it is adjusting its SMB offering by making it more affordable. Gnani serves over 200 clients across sectors such as banking, insurance, BNPL, NBFCS, MFI, telecoms and automobiles. Agent AI solutions power use cases such as customer service, fraud detection, collections, customer engagement and more. In particular, Compani has been selected under India's mission to help build the Sovereign Foundational Large Languages Model (LLM). According to Tracxn, India has 106 active agent AI companies.
Agent AI startup Zigment, which offers an autonomous AI layer over the company's mobile phone, chat and email channels, is currently garnering around 25% of the remaining demand from SMBs, startups and large companies. The startup claims that in the US, they are seeing strong draws from D2C (consumer-friendly) brands that want to move their Tier-1 support and retention workflows to AI. There is also great interest and growth in the BFSI sector in the UAE and the broader MENA region.
Another key player in this segment, Info Edge-Edged Endollment Automation Firm Meritto, says the adoption of agent AI is driven by institutional thinking rather than organizational size. Its MIO AI has attracted 18-20% of the demand from EDTECH startups such as ADDA247 for education, and has taken a break from large universities such as SRM University, Manipal University and BITS Pilani. “Whether it's a major private university or a digital native coaching lab, they want not only AI to answer questions, but AI to deliver results,” said CEO and founder Naveen Goyal.
A Agent AI recruitment intelligence platform built for large employment organizations, Cohyre demands efficiency and accuracy that is not inflated with workflows, seeing strong traction from startups and mid-sized businesses. “These companies value fast turnaround time and lean employment stacks. Our agents act like an expansion team of employment analysts,” said Vishal Sharma, CTO COYRE AI.
