Amazon launched Rufus in February 2024, the company’s AI shopping assistant, across both mobile and desktop platforms. 

It is more popular than you might expect, that is, ~14% of all searches on Amazon’s website in October 2024 may have been handled through Rufus. 

After all, AI is the obvious answer to one of the hardest and most annoying problems in e-commerce. 

There are several reasons why but it primarily it comes down to three things. 

Praveen Gopal Krishnan explains in this edition of The Nutgraf. 

You can take the survey here. 

You can also read the edition here. 

After almost a year, Zomato, Swiggy, and Zepto don’t appear to be on the front foot any longer. 

The market was bound to tap out at some point, and it was always going to plateau much faster than food delivery did. 

There is a well-known framework for understanding how humans respond to perceived threats. 

Tune in to The Nutgraf to hear Praveen Gopal Krishnan explain the above companies’ responses. 

In content creation, the only inefficiency is the time it takes to create something, which isn’t a bug, but a feature.

In eliminating the inefficiency, AI ends up killing the very product it's meant to improve.

If you are still unconvinced, ask yourself: What inefficiency does AI address in content creation?

It’s certainly not volume.

Praveen Gopal Krishnan explains further in this episode. Tune in.

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Apply for Product Designer: https://the-ken.com/jobs/product-designer/

Faith-funding is when founders change roles and become VCs to invest in their own companies.

It was viewed with suspicion, and for good reason—a founder putting money into their company is a sign that they couldn’t convince someone else to do the same.

Over the last few months, faith-funding hasn’t just become palatable, it’s become more powerful.

Praveen Gopal Krishnan delves deeper in this episode of The Nutgraf. Tune in.

It’s almost a clichè these days to call Aggarwal as the Indian Elon Musk, particularly because it’s no longer evident if the comparison is meant to be complimentary or derogatory. 

But the one thing that Tesla and Ola Electric have in common is that both these brands seem to have been hit, and are less desirable in the minds of their consumers. 

These parallels don’t just extend to their EV companies, but it goes beyond that…to their other companies. 

Praveen Gopal Krishnan delves further in this episode. Tune in. 

Earlier The Nutgraf edition referenced in the episode: https://the-ken.com/the-nutgraf/krutrim-is-whatever-ola-wants-it-to-be/

If you’re a B2B AI startup in India, your biggest problem isn’t revenue, costs, profit or even talent — it’s time-wasters. 

Like most things in life, this seems to be a uniquely Indian problem.

And they are right to be frustrated by this. 

However, they also believe that this is a problem only faced by them. 

This is where they are wrong.

Praveen Gopal Krishnan explains why in this episode of The Nutgraf. Tune in.

The blood-brain barrier is one of the human body’s most important ‘features’.

A similar barrier existed in the tech world. 

But now, with the rise of agentic AI, platforms are looking to take things a step further.

For example, Google changed its privacy policy so it could read Google documents that its users created using its platform. Meta went after all your social posts. Everything was fair game. Everything was eaten. 

The next to be devoured isn’t content—it’s e-commerce.

Praveen Gopal Krishnan elucidates in this episode of The Nutgraf. Tune in.

Job cuts in tech happen all the time, but this one feels different. Microsoft didn’t get rid of its employees for the usual reasons—poor performance, macroeconomic conditions, or lower-than-expected earnings. In fact, as of today, Microsoft’s share prices are trading at close to its all-time high. If you wanted to, you could easily make the case that Microsoft, the most valuable company in the world, is in the most powerful and dominant position in its history.

And at this point, what did Microsoft do?

It eliminated human roles to focus on investing in machines instead.

Tune in to the latest edition of The Nutgraf as Praveen Gopal Krishnan delves into the many intricacies of AI layoffs.

Recently, one of Ola’s investors slashed Ola's valuation to $1.2 billion—a drop of over 80% from its peak in 2021. On the other hand, at least one of the investors of rival Rapido believes that Rapido is worth $1.1 billion.

Even if you ignore the specific valuations, the trend is uncontestable. Ola is falling, Rapido is climbing, and now, their paths cross in a moment of reversal. How did this happen?

Well, there are two theories for it, explains Praveen Gopal Krishnan in this episode of The Nutgraf. Tune in.

At 3:40, we mention that Rapido raised $200 billion from Westbridge Capital in September 2024. It had raised $200 million. The Ken regrets the error.

The Ken articles referenced in the episode:

Krutrim is whatever Ola wants it to be
Here's how the Swiggy, Zomato duopoly might crack 

How Ola and Uber are being disrupted in Bengaluru 

A couple of days ago, Moneycontrol broke the story about a fallout between the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) and the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).

The NRAI, India’s largest restaurant body, put a hold on onboarding new members onto the platform.

Well, it has several reasons to be unhappy. After all, it's pretty undeniable now that ONDC is struggling to make its model work, especially in food delivery.

In this week's episode of The Nutgraf, Praveen Gopal Krishnan explores the reasons behind the rising discontent—and why ONDC is losing. Tune in.

You can also read this edition here.