Over 60% of Coding At Rapido Is Done By AI: Cofounder Rishikesh SR

AI-assisted coding, even in enterprise setups, has become the norm. Ride-hailing platform Rapido is no different. According to Rishikesh SR, the cofounder of the Bengaluru-based startup, two-thirds or about 66% of the coding work is done with AI. And this number is expected to grow with time.

Speaking with the managing partner at PeerCapital, Ankur Pahwa, at the third edition of Inc42’s AI Summit in Bengaluru, Rishikesh said AI has helped the company solve ‘impossible problems’. 

Highlighting how Rapido is approaching AI, he said the ride-hailing giant has transitioned all of its quality engineers into developer roles and spends a lot of time enabling developers to handle much of the job directly, often using natural language and AI-assisted workflows. This has significantly increased the speed of execution at Rapido. 

According to Rishikesh, the biggest shift has been the drastic reduction in the time taken to move from an idea to production and complete the feedback loop. A couple of years ago, that cycle typically took around more than two months, but it had now come down to roughly two weeks. The company’s release cycle has come down to just one week today. 

Giving a recent example, Rishikesh said that one of Rapido’s latest features, Bikes for Women, groups top-rated drivers into a separate service category. “From ideation to production, the feature was built in roughly 24 hours. While operationalising took a couple more days, the core product itself moved incredibly fast.” 

However, Rishikesh noted that his team is also mindful of not going overboard with AI, as it can still not reliably solve in every context. 

“Our teams have unlimited access to models, frameworks and tools. They are free to experiment, and there is no real restriction from our side. Naturally, there is a lot of testing and iteration that comes with that,” he added. 

Rapido is one of India’s largest bike-taxi aggregators and ride-hailing platforms. It was founded in 2015 by Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli, and Rishikesh SR. In May, the startup Rapido secured $240 Mn in a funding round led by Prosus. The startup said that the funding is part of a larger $730 Mn round, which will be a mix of primary and secondary transactions, to be raised at a post-money valuation of $3 Bn.

Rapido plans to use the capital to expand into new markets, deepen its presence in existing markets, grow its driver network, and invest in technology and hiring.

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