"The future of AI is private,” says KOGO AI CEO as firms seek data control

As businesses swiftly integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their core operations, an Indian startup is presenting a bold alternative: enterprise AI should reside on-premises rather than in the cloud. KOGO AI, which counts Tech Mahindra, Michelin, and the Indian Army among its clients, asserts that large organizations are increasingly seeking AI systems that remain within their own infrastructures, including private clouds. This shift is largely driven by heightened concerns regarding data breaches, intellectual property risks, and regulatory oversight. "The future of AI is private," stated Raj K Gopalakrishnan, CEO and co-founder of KOGO AI, in an interview with Business Today. "We don’t bring data to AI. We take AI to where the data is." The company’s flagship offering, KOGO OS, is designed as a comprehensive private operating system that replaces multiple layers of AI tools, from model management to deployment and monitoring, all while functioning entirely within the customer's environment. In contrast to software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms that manage data on vendor-controlled systems, KOGO installs its technology directly within enterprise infrastructures. Gopalakrishnan emphasized, "It’s not a SaaS-based platform. The entire system operates within the customer’s setup." Earlier this year, KOGO partnered with Qualcomm to create a complete private AI solution tailored for enterprise needs. This strategy has attracted interest from various sectors, including banking, defense, and healthcare, which often face stringent compliance requirements regarding data privacy. KOGO has reported revenue growth of approximately 600% to 700% annually, driven by these sector-specific deployments. At the recent India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, KOGO showcased its installations across private data centers, edge systems, and air-gapped networks—settings where internet access is limited or prohibited. The startup also introduced CommandCore, a hybrid hardware-software solution developed in partnership with Arinox AI, designed to allow organizations to operate AI agents entirely offline. This system is aimed at defense agencies, government entities, and operators of critical infrastructure that must function without internet connectivity. In a statement following the product launch, Gopalakrishnan remarked, "Sovereign AI requires sovereign infrastructure and a sovereign operating system working in tandem." KOGO’s platform serves as an orchestration layer over numerous AI models, enabling enterprises to integrate both open-source and proprietary systems to develop autonomous agents tailored to their internal processes. "You don’t train agents; models are trained. We are the orchestration layer on top of those models," explained Gopalakrishnan. This approach allows companies across various fields—ranging from supply chain management to finance—to create specialized systems without exposing sensitive data externally. To date, over 25,000 agents have been developed using KOGO's platform. Focusing on large enterprises rather than smaller businesses or individual consumers, Gopalakrishnan stated, "We are a deep tech solution for large enterprises. We are not targeting retail or SMEs." In a landscape where many AI firms prioritize model accuracy or benchmark performance, KOGO evaluates success through financial metrics, including time savings, cost reductions, and overall cost of ownership. Gopalakrishnan noted, "Business metrics are the only metrics that truly matter." The company also emphasizes that maintaining data in-house mitigates one of the primary reasons for failures in enterprise AI projects: privacy breaches during implementation. Gopalakrishnan highlighted the importance of keeping a company's accumulated intelligence secure, saying, "What differentiates a century-old company from a two-year-old startup is their experience. You cannot afford to have that intelligence compromised." With the rise of agentic AI—systems capable of making autonomous decisions—concerns about manipulation attacks like prompt injection have emerged. KOGO claims to have integrated 'red teaming' tools directly into its platform to simulate adversarial attacks against active agents, a feature Gopalakrishnan asserts is uncommon in commercial systems. "We are the only agentic platform that incorporates a red teaming module, allowing us to simulate attempts to 'attack, hack, and break' AI systems to ensure their resilience," he said. Gopalakrishnan is confident that the growing apprehension surrounding surveillance, data leakage, and compliance will steer both organizations and individuals towards localized AI solutions. "The future of AI is private," he reiterated, emphasizing the need for systems that respect user privacy while accumulating contextual understanding without explicit user awareness.