“As a market research company looking to build a technology platform, we needed a provider that could work with us over the entire journey, and that was experienced at working with customers to deliver consumer-facing products that used AI at scale,” says Upadhyay. “This prompted us to go with Google Cloud.”

“We worked closely with Google Cloud’s Professional Services Organization (PSO) to ensure we treated customer data in accordance with India’s legislation and regulations and our own internal governance requirements,” explains Upadhyay. “This included following the PSO’s checklist of everything we needed to do from a security and data privacy perspective.”

The infrastructure deployed with Niveus Solutions’ assistance incorporates complementary services that meet requirements that range from performance to controlled access to sensitive data. Cloud Load Balancing provides high availability and low latency for the platform and app, while internal access to sensitive data is determined by role-based access and is strictly controlled through Identity and Access Management (IAM). The app runs in a microservices architecture and Axis My India leverages Google Kubernetes Engine for containerized deployments. 

AlloyDB for PostgreSQL provides fast, highly available and accessible data management, while Cloud Storage and Cloud CDN serve static content on the website and app. The application technology stack includes Flutter, Node.js, and Next.js, while Firebase provides push notifications and Pub/Sub the data integration pipeline. Access My India has also integrated Places API to provide location-based services and features via the app and platform. 

The business works with Niveus Solutions to use Vertex AI to build the generative AI experiences infused into its platform and app. Recognizing the importance of voice in making the service accessible to a cohort with varying literacy levels, Axis My India has utilized a number of AI-powered Google services to add voice inputs into workflows, including Speech to Text AI, Text-To-Speech AI, Cloud Translation API and Natural Language API. Through these Google Cloud services, the platform and app supports about 13 of the languages spoken in India with more anticipated as the product matures, broadening its addressable market.

“Developing a platform that will impact the lives of 250 million households was a great responsibility and I am proud that our project, engineering, and delivery teams did a fantastic job with the “a” app. I am pleased with how we have contributed to making the Government of India's initiatives more accessible to the people. The app is proof of how the right use of technology can give access to information at the right time to citizens in need, especially those who are underprivileged”, explains Suyog Shetty, Chief Executive Officer, Niveus Solutions.

 In a pilot across five villages, the number of enrollments in the insurance initiative increased from 1,532 to 3,068 people, and the exercise is being rolled out to other states in India.

Axis My India is now poised to realize its vision of providing services to 1 million people before extending to more markets such as the 65% of people in India who live in rural and regional areas. “Thanks to Google Cloud, the user potential of the app is massive,” concludes Upadhyay. “We have started with the key problem the common person in India faces and opted to solve it with a combination of rich technologies and services from Google Cloud combined with the human touch provided by our people.”