What I took away from Global Fintech Fest 2026

I did not expect Global Fintech Fest 2026 to be the inflection point in the way I think about my own research. I went in mostly curious about what people were building. I came out thinking much more about what we still do not understand.

Real conversations

Sarvam got me thinking about something we often miss in research: what happens when an AI system is exposed to millions of real conversations across languages, accents and contexts that no benchmark can fully capture?

Voice

ElevenLabs and smallest.ai made me look at voice differently too. Making speech sound human is one problem. Making the entire interaction fast, contextual and reliable is a much harder one.

Creating versus verifying

That question of reliability followed me into Drew Olson's workshop on Agentic AI for Software Development. His distinction between AI creating and AI verifying really stayed with me. We are getting better at putting AI inside the loop, but that raises a more fundamental question: if AI is creating, reasoning and acting inside the same system, where should verification actually happen?

I am glad I got to experience Global Fintech Fest with Krishang Sharma as well. More than the products, I appreciated leaving with better questions than I came in with. That is probably the best thing a conference can give you.