Krutrim, the artificial intelligence venture launched by Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal, has initiated its third round of layoffs since June 2025, letting go of nearly 50 employees from its linguistics division.
The latest cuts affect team leads and transcribers working on regional languages such as Bengali, Malayalam, and Punjabi, further thinning the team responsible for data annotation and text-to-speech projects.
With this round, the total number of exits—comprising layoffs and voluntary departures—has crossed 200 this year.
The company’s linguistics team, which once had around 600 members, now stands at approximately 400.
Strategic Realignment and Completion of Annotation Phase
A Krutrim spokesperson confirmed that the layoffs are part of a broader strategic realignment as the company transitions to leaner, more agile teams.
“The current phase of the data annotation project involving in-house linguistics has been successfully completed,” the spokesperson said, indicating that the roles were rendered redundant following project completion.
The restructuring comes as Krutrim intensifies efforts to build its own full-stack AI platform, including its most ambitious project to date—Krutrim 3, a multibillion-parameter large language model (LLM).
However, the thinning of the linguistics team has raised questions about the pace and quality of progress on Krutrim 3, especially in multilingual contexts.
Krutrim Leadership Exodus Adds to Operational Strain
In addition to staff reductions, Krutrim has witnessed a wave of senior-level exits since April 2025.
At least six top executives have left the company, including:
- Goutham Ramkumar (Director – Evaluation and AI Data)
- Rajesh Jayaram (Senior Director – Platform Hardware Architect)
- Ramesh Babu Giri (Head of Software Engineering – AI Server)
- Vineet Agarwal (Director – Corporate Finance & Investor Relations)
- Ajay Raut (Senior Director – Cloud Architect)
- Kishore Kulkarni (Senior Technologist)
These departures follow over 20 exits across management levels earlier in FY25, compounding concerns about leadership stability and continuity in Krutrim’s product development.
Funding Delays and Product Traction Challenges
Krutrim’s restructuring efforts coincide with reported funding delays and limited traction for its core products—Krutrim Cloud and its LLM offerings.
Despite raising $50 million from Z47 Partners and entering the unicorn club in early 2024, the company has struggled to convert its technological ambitions into market-ready solutions.
Its AI assistant app, Kruti, launched in June 2025, has recorded 207,000 downloads so far, according to SensorTower data.
While the numbers indicate initial interest, they fall short of expectations for a product positioned as a flagship consumer-facing AI solution.
Krutrim Founder’s Vision and Future Roadmap
Bhavish Aggarwal has previously outlined aggressive expansion plans for Krutrim, including scaling data center capacity to 1 gigawatt by 2028 and committing up to ₹10,000 crore in investments over the next few years.
Earlier this year, he launched Krutrim AI Labs and pledged a portion of his Ola Electric shares to secure debt financing for the venture.
Despite the setbacks, Krutrim maintains that its restructuring is aimed at long-term sustainability and sharper execution.
Industry observers, however, note that the company’s challenges mirror broader trends in the AI startup ecosystem, where execution gaps often hinder product maturity despite substantial funding.
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