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On May 20, Grab announced that one of its robots, named Carri, will start deliveries in Singapore\u2019s Punggol district, the city-state\u2019s hub for testing robotic services.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Carri has already been plying the corridors of Grab\u2019s Singapore headquarters, says chief technology officer Suthen Paradatheth. And Carri\u2019s not alone. \u201cWe don\u2019t oblige our business units to just use our robots,\u201d Paradatheth told Fortune during an interview on the sidelines of the Asia Tech (ATx) summit. \u201cIf you go to the Grab office now, you\u2019ll see robots from other companies as well. We use a 1+n strategy which keeps us on our toes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paradatheth has been involved with Grab from almost the very beginning, before the company even got its name. He joined the firm, then a Malaysia-based ride-hailing outfit called MyTeksi, as a part-time consultant after a mutual friend introduced him to its founders, Anthony Tan and Tan Hooi Ling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur mission was to make taxis safer in Kuala Lumpur,\u201d Paradatheth explained. \u201cLing told me a story of starting a call with her mom whenever she rode home at night; even if they didn\u2019t speak, it was a way to make sure the driver knew she was being monitored by someone.\u201d The anecdote hit home for Paradatheth, whose own sister had similarly recounted feeling unsafe while riding taxis. \u201cI saw a very real problem to get involved in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Paradatheth joined full-time in 2015 and followed the company to Singapore, where it rebranded to Grab. He then moved through roles including chief of staff and head of engineering for research and development, before being appointed as CTO in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of folks have grown with the company, just like me,\u201d he said. \u201cMany of the senior leaders in the company are people who were with me during the 2012 storeroom days; they came as interns and are now heads of engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n
Building a Southeast Asian tech empire<\/p>\n
Grab, No. 128 on Fortune\u2019s Southeast Asia 500 list, reported $2.8 billion in revenue last year, up from just $469 million in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paradatheth credits the global rise of smartphone ownership for Grab\u2019s growth, but he remembers a time when the device wasn\u2019t quite so ubiquitous. \u201cBack in 2012, smartphones were still a thing that only early adopters were buying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grab decided to give its drivers a basic smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy Y, so they could access the app. Drivers could pay for the phone via installments or through a cut of their earnings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Southeast Asia, we\u2019re working under pretty tight economic constraints, with most markets being emerging markets,\u201d Paradatheth said. \u201cAnd so engineering for that\u2014both in terms of optimizing for what the customer has and what they can use, and making sure we\u2019re constantly able to drive down costs\u2014have been things we\u2019ve invested in from those early days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grab\u2019s app has expanded far beyond ride-hailing to include digital payments, insurance, and delivery. It also developed its own mapping service, GrabMaps, weaning itself off third-party mapping solutions like Google Maps.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found that third-party mapping providers just didn\u2019t have the coverage we wanted,\u201d Paradatheth explained. \u201cFor example, the small side roads which our two-wheel riders on motorcycle taxis use weren\u2019t really captured in third-party maps.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018AI first, with heart\u2019<\/p>\n
Grab has embedded over 1,000 AI models into its platforms, and leaders claim they\u2019re guided by the principle \u201cAI first, with heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about harnessing the AI inflection to create customer value,\u201d Paradatheth says.<\/p>\n
He points to Grab\u2019s AI-powered translation model, which it built to provide in-app translation for Southeast Asia\u2019s languages, as an example of the firm\u2019s attempts at harnessing the technology. He said the tool is 90% accurate, and can even capture informal contractions and \u201cSMS speak\u201d. (The firm now operates in eight markets across Southeast Asia and entered Taiwan in March, after paying $600 million to acquire Foodpanda\u2019s local business.)<\/p>\n
\u201cSoutheast Asia, in particular, has layers of locality,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are thousands of languages, but also lots of tourists from China, Japan and South Korea who come to visit, and often, English isn\u2019t their primary language.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grab is also working to strengthen AI literacy and adoption in the markets it operates in. The platform will also launch a program for small- and medium-sized enterprises in hts home market of Singapore, hoping to encourage AI adoption across 10,000 food and beverage, e-commerce, and retail firms.<\/p>\n
Still, Grab\u2019s push towards AI is worrying some who rely on the platform for their income. The platform is making a big push towards automated driving, investing in several self-driving vehicle startups and launching a robobus in Singapore.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are living in a world where humans who don\u2019t embrace AI will very likely be displaced. This is not a dystopian future, folks, it is a reality we must confront today,\u201d said Grab CEO Anthony Tan during the firm\u2019s flagship event in Jakarta in April.<\/p>\n
Paradatheth swears that humans will remain at the heart of all Grab\u2019s operations. \u201cWe don\u2019t see our autonomous vehicles or delivery robots as substitutes for people,\u201d he said. \u201cWe see them as complementary to what our driver partners already do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking forward, he wants Grab to become a global leader in urban embodied AI. \u201cThere\u2019s an opportunity to provide all kinds of optimization\u2014to make journeys smoother, and living in cities more enjoyable and fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
#Grab #CTO #Suthen #Paradatheth #competitors #robots #toes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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