Flagship AI Engines & Current AI Applications: Chief AI Officer at L&T Finance Stresses on India's Need To Accept AI

At the AI Summit and Awards 2026, Dr. Debarag Banerjee (Chief AI and Data Officer, L&T Finance) took the stage to speak on ‘To India’s Credit: AI in Lending’. Along with shattering the myth of AI being poised to replace the human workforce, he laid special emphasis on how India needs to openly accept, adapt to, and excel in the AI Revolution.

Flagship AI Engines by L&T Finance

Mr. Banerjee talks about the flagship AI engine named Cyclops, that has been in production for over a year and uses various data sources, including bank statements, payment history, and location data, to predict loan default probability. It does so by segmenting customers for preferential pricing and has significantly reduced early default indicators.

He then mentions another tool named Nostradamus, which monitors customer behavior post-loan disbursement to identify potential economic stress or improvement, enabling timely interventions.

Lastly, he talks about Helios, which assists human underwriters by quickly analyzing extensive documents like bureau reports and bank records, providing insights and flagging anomalies to accelerate decision-making.

All of these tools are a good reflection of the efficiency that India can gain in AI, as these have revolutionized finance, lending and associated applications.

Current AI Applications

Mr. Banerjee highlighted that AI is adapted to handle image-based data for tasks like tractor valuation in rural areas and assessing neighbourhood affluence in urban areas based on Google Earth data. Furthermore, he highlights that AI agents can now be used to make collection calls, capable of natural conversations in multiple Indian languages and introduces Kai, a multi-modal AI chatbot for customer service.

Kolkata vs Bengaluru: A Tale of Two Cities

Mr. Banerjee gave great focus on integrating AI into workflows and not disregarding the same due to factors like AI being too expensive, causing job losses or not being capable at times to make the right decisions. He disregards all of these as myths. In fact, he uses a comparative analysis of 2 Indian cities to warn against overly restrictive AI regulations.

The case in point he made was that of Kolkata, which was an intellectual and productive hub with many Nobel laureates and science graduates. However, the government in Kolkata became wary of adopting computers in banks and other sectors, effectively putting a brake on the oncoming IT revolution. In contrast, Bengaluru emerged on the scene, opening up to technological innovations and applications. It wasn’t vary of major changes brought forth by the IT Revolution, which transformed this small industrial city into India’s Silicon Valley.

Who is Debarag Banerjee?

Dr. Debarag Banerjee is the Chief AI & Data Officer at L&T Finance. A Stanford-trained AI expert, he possesses extensive global experience across fintech and technology sectors, leading strategic AI innovation to modernise financial services and expand inclusive lending. It’s through efforts like these that Republic Media Network awarded L&T Finance as the Best Leader for Tech Transformation in NBFC.

It’s these very insights from his experiences that Dr. Debarag Banerjee brought to the AI Summit and Awards 2026.