NEW DELHI, India — Google on Thursday announced the launch of the Google Market Access Program, a new initiative aimed at helping Indian startups strengthen their go-to-market strategies and accelerate their transition from local pilots to global scale.
The announcement was made at the Google AI Startups Conclave, where the company reiterated its long-term commitment to India’s fast-growing artificial intelligence startup ecosystem.
The program is targeted at AI-first startups that have moved beyond the prototype stage but face difficulties in converting early pilots into long-term enterprise contracts. Google said the initiative is designed to address what it described as the “commercial last mile” challenge that many founders encounter while scaling their innovations.
Under the Market Access Program, selected startups will receive structured training on enterprise sales, global pricing models, and international buyer behavior. Participants will also gain facilitated access to Google’s global network of chief information officers and senior business leaders, along with immersion opportunities in key international markets through partnerships with ecosystem organizations such as TiE Silicon Valley and Alteus.
Speaking at the event, Preeti Lobana, country manager for India at Google, said Indian startups are building deep technology solutions at population scale but often struggle to scale commercially.
“India has become strong in turning ideas into prototypes, many startups struggle during the scaling phase,” Lobana said.
In parallel with the program launch, Google announced new additions to its open Gemma model family to support advanced AI use cases. The company introduced MedGemma 1.5, an open medical AI model designed to work with complex medical data, including CT scans, MRI scans, histopathology slides, and medical reports. Google said the model is expected to support next-generation healthcare diagnostics and medical research.
Google also unveiled FunctionGemma, a lightweight model optimized for function calling and on-device AI agents. The model enables applications to convert natural language instructions into real actions on devices, allowing fast, private, and low-latency AI capabilities without the need for continuous internet connectivity. (Source: IANS)
