In a world the place AI innovation is basically dictated by Silicon Valley and China, Camb.ai is quietly making a case for deep-tech management from exterior the standard energy centres. Based by Avneesh Prakash (CEO) and son Akshat Prakash (CTO), the corporate operates from Dubai however has a big Indian affect.
Camb supplies speech and translation AI providing, dubbing content material in over 140 languages utilizing its proprietary AI fashions. The startup has partnered with sports activities, manufacturing corporations, and different verticals for dwell AI content material.
Rethinking AI Economics
Whereas most AI corporations are locked in a race to scale giant fashions, Camb is betting on small language fashions (SLMs). Its give attention to SLMs by means of fashions equivalent to Mars 6, which has simply 80 million parameters, makes it apt to run on a smartphone.
“If I can match one thing in your cellphone, it out of the blue adjustments the sport utterly. You don’t want these large-scale GPUs. You don’t must have a central place to name all the pieces from,” mentioned Akshat in an unique interplay with AIM.
Akshat believes that this strategy reshapes AI’s price dynamics. As an alternative of corporations paying per-API-call charges to OpenAI or Google, Camb.ai envisions a future the place AI fashions run independently on client gadgets.
“We’re a lot greater than speech-to-speech or AI dubbing. Once we are profitable, we even have the power to redefine the economics of AI,” he mentioned.
AI With out Borders
Not like western AI corporations that function from a singular tech hub, Camb.ai has constructed its basis with a globally distributed crew. “Persons are very confused about how a Dubai-born or an East-born firm might be pulling off such feats that they’d have anticipated western corporations to do,” mentioned Akshat.
Past its international presence, Camb.ai additionally challenges the narrative of AI possession. Whereas many corporations depend on exterior APIs from OpenAI or Anthropic, Camb has constructed its personal proprietary fashions.
As a strategic transfer to show its independence, it even open-sourced Mars 5, a high-performance voice mannequin. “The world didn’t wish to consider in us, so open-sourcing was a good way to inform them, ‘Look, we’re constructing our personal know-how’.”
Camb.ai partnered with Main League Soccer and have become the primary firm to dwell stream the video games in a number of languages. The corporate’s real-time AI dubbing and translation have been additionally efficiently deployed throughout the 2025 Australian Open.
“Sports activities has all of the tough parts of content material that make this downside arduous. It has background cheering, noise, loud environments, a number of commentators, area of interest lingo, and fast-paced motion,” Akshat defined.
By perfecting AI dubbing for sports activities, Camb ensures its know-how is powerful sufficient for broader enterprise purposes.
That’s not all. The startup, which raised a $4 million seed spherical led by Courtside Ventures final 12 months, has additionally partnered with IMAX to supply multilingual help for movies.
Past Dubbing
Whereas Camb began with AI dubbing, its long-term imaginative and prescient is to interrupt language obstacles at scale. “The web was made for English audio system, and we wish to redesign it for the world,” mentioned Akshat. Its AI options now prolong past speech and video translation, serving to enterprises localise digital content material, enhance fan engagement, and automate multilingual communications.
The corporate’s app, Savant, takes this mission additional. It permits customers to sort and work together in a number of languages seamlessly, making cross-language communication frictionless. “If anyone can textual content you within the language they’re most snug in, and you’ll obtain it in your most well-liked language, that’s wonderful,” he added.
Regardless of its speedy rise, Camb.ai continues to be competing in opposition to AI giants with large funding and infrastructure. Nonetheless, Akshat believes their give attention to smaller, extra environment friendly AI fashions will give them an edge in the long term.
“The largest problem in AI immediately isn’t simply innovation, it’s making AI sustainable and scalable. If we are able to clear up that, we alter the sport,” he concluded.
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