Finnish handset maker HMD is integrating an Indian-developed artificial intelligence assistant into its new Vibe 2 5G smartphone to differentiate in India’s budget segment and address non-English and first-time smartphone users.

The Vibe 2 5G ships with Indus, an AI chatbot created by Bengaluru-based startup Sarvam. Indus runs on a 105-billion-parameter large language model trained primarily on Indian data and optimized for local languages, accents, and usage patterns.

Indus supports 22 Indian languages and can process mid-sentence code-switching, such as alternating between Hindi and English within a single query. This capability is relevant in India, where multilingual and mixed-language communication is common and where many global AI tools show reduced performance on such input.

At launch, Indus operates as an internet-dependent application without a dedicated hardware trigger on the Vibe 2 5G. HMD characterizes this as an initial deployment phase aimed at user adoption before deeper system-level integration and additional features are implemented.

The Vibe 2 5G is positioned in the value segment, with a mid-range Android specification, a 6,000mAh battery, and a price of ₹10,999. HMD plans to preload Indus on future models in the Vibe series as well.

HMD’s longer-term objective includes extending Sarvam’s AI to feature phones. While HMD’s smartphone market share in India is minimal, it retains a measurable presence in the feature phone category, which still serves hundreds of millions of users who are offline or under-connected and who frequently prefer local languages over English.

Indus currently has limited consumer penetration, with just over 293,000 downloads in India, far below the install base of global competitors such as ChatGPT. However, preinstallation on low-cost devices may increase its reach in smaller cities and rural regions, where app discovery is constrained and bundled applications often become default tools.

Sarvam has focused primarily on enterprise and voice-based AI solutions. The partnership with HMD extends its reach into the mass consumer market and will test whether a regionally trained, multilingual AI assistant can achieve adoption in contexts where English-centric tools are less effective.