From Boardrooms to Labs – Neuraluna and BITS Students Push India’s AI Story Forward

India’s AI story is moving in two directions at once. One is inside companies, where AI is being used to help experts handle more work. The other is inside research labs, where AI could help scientists study complex questions and plan experiments.

These two ideas are at the centre of recent announcements from Neuraluna and NovAtom Labs, a student-led startup created by BITS Pilani Hyderabad students. Their products serve different users, but both are based on the same promise – AI should help people do better work, not blindly replace them.

Neuraluna expands its enterprise AI presence

As per BS, Seattle-headquartered Neuraluna has announced an expanded presence in India as part of its global enterprise AI strategy. The company was founded in December 2024 by Dinesh Chahlia and Phani Solomou.

Neuraluna is aimed at expert-led businesses such as consulting firms, legal practices, healthcare advisers and professional-services teams. Its platform lets organizations build AI agents around their own knowledge, methods and documents without requiring employees to write code.

For example, a consulting firm could create an internal AI assistant that follows its project-planning method, uses approved templates and helps teams prepare first drafts. A law firm could use a similar setup to help lawyers find relevant past work more quickly.

The company says every client engagement can be kept in a separate workspace. This matters because professional firms often work with confidential information from multiple clients. Neuraluna also uses models from several AI providers rather than tying users to one model family.

The opportunity is clear, but businesses should still check data location, permissions and compliance requirements before uploading sensitive information. Neuraluna’s privacy policy states that its servers are located in the United States, a point Indian companies should consider when handling regulated or confidential data.

BITS Pilani students build Research Copilot

At BITS Pilani Hyderabad, students Arnav Kulshreshtha and Sattwik Das have built Research Copilot through their student-led deep-tech startup, NovAtom Labs.

As per DC, the platform is designed to assist scientists through several parts of research – understanding a problem, reviewing existing papers, identifying useful variables, planning experiments and learning from results.

This is more than a chatbot that summarizes an article. The aim is to help researchers connect ideas across a large body of scientific literature and decide what to investigate next.

For instance, a materials-science researcher studying a new battery material may have to compare hundreds of papers, test different chemical combinations and track several experimental conditions. A research assistant like this could help organize findings, identify gaps and suggest questions worth examining. The final scientific judgement, however, must remain with researchers.

According to reports, the platform has been evaluated by researchers connected with ETH Zurich, Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Toronto. NovAtom Labs has also demonstrated it at the Semiconductor Laboratory in Mohali.

How these AI tools could affect us

Neuraluna could help Indian expert firms serve more clients without forcing professionals to start from scratch on every assignment. That may make specialized knowledge easier to access for smaller businesses.

Research Copilot could save time in laboratories by reducing repetitive reading and helping researchers organize complex information. In areas such as semiconductors, biotechnology, energy and advanced manufacturing, faster research cycles could eventually lead to better products and stronger local innovation.

However, both tools have limits. Enterprise AI can produce incorrect answers or expose confidential information if poorly managed. Research AI can identify patterns, but it cannot replace peer review, experiments, safety checks or scientific ethics.

Competition and the road ahead

Neuraluna enters a market that includes Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini for Workspace and several specialist enterprise AI platforms. Its focus on isolated client workspaces and reusable expert knowledge is its main differentiator.

Research Copilot faces competition from academic AI tools such as SciSpace, Elicit and Perplexity. Its strength will depend on whether it can offer reliable scientific reasoning, useful citations and practical support for real experiments.