Ola's Krutrim Silently Pulls Plug on AI Assistant 'Kruti' Less Than a Year After Launch

Ola's AI venture, Krutrim, has quietly and abruptly shut down its flagship 'agentic' AI assistant, Kruti, less than a year after its high-profile launch. The chatbot, which promised to handle tasks from booking Ola cabs and ordering food to generating images, has vanished from the web, app stores, and the Ola platform itself. No official explanation or statement has been provided by Ola or Krutrim, leaving users and observers in the dark about the sudden disappearance of a product once central to the company's AI ambitions.

The shutdown was first reported by The Economic Times, with MediaNama confirming the app's removal from both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Visitors to the dedicated 'kruti.ai' website are now met only with a generic maintenance message stating, 'We'll be back soon... We're working on something great and will be back shortly.' This radio silence from the company, coupled with the complete removal of the product, signals a significant and unannounced strategic shift or internal reassessment of the AI assistant project.

The move raises immediate questions about the stability and roadmap of Krutrim's consumer-facing AI offerings. It places scrutiny on Ola's broader AI strategy, suggesting potential technical hurdles, product-market fit issues, or a rapid pivot in priorities. For a company that has aggressively positioned itself in India's competitive AI landscape, the silent sunset of a core product within a year is a notable anomaly that puts its execution capabilities and long-term commitment to such integrated consumer AI under pressure.