Manoj Gautam, CIO, Maruti Suzuki on how the auto leader is shifting gears for the AI Era

Maruti Suzuki, a leader in India’s automotive industry for over four decades, continues to set benchmarks for technological innovation and operational excellence. The company’s focus on understanding customer needs and adopting new technologies has been key to sustaining its market leadership.

In this fireside conversation which took place at Technology Senate North , Manoj Gautam, Chief Information Officer, Maruti Suzuki India, discusses the company’s technology journey, its use of AI and analytics, engagement with startups, and the road ahead.

Maruti Suzuki has been a leader in the automotive market for over four decades. How do you see the impact of technology on maintaining that leadership?

Maruti Suzuki has been the market leader since its inception in India over 40 years ago, in partnership with Suzuki Motor Corporation. The main reason for this sustained leadership is our ability to read, understand, and adapt to changing customer needs. After understanding what the customer truly wants, our ability to deliver that using technology has been our biggest strength.

When I joined Maruti Suzuki 20 years ago, we were producing around 5 lakh cars annually. Even at that time, our manufacturing ecosystem was IoT-enabled. Today, we talk about IoT, Industry 4.0, and digital transformation — but 20 years back, we already had systems in place where every vehicle on the assembly line was digitally tracked.

Each car’s model, color, and components were known to the system, and assembly workers received digital instructions accordingly. This level of integration was already operational two decades ago.

Over the years, we have continued to innovate and adopt new technologies. For example, we were among the first to implement a Dealer Management System (DMS) in India. Today, we have around 6,000 service locations and an equal number of sales locations, all digitally connected.

We also have a state-of-the-art material planning system that provides real-time schedules to our vendors. Even with a production volume of 2.2 million cars annually, we do not store raw materials on the shop floor. Materials arrive every two to three hours and go directly into production. This level of precision and efficiency is possible only through advanced technology — and credit goes to our teams who have consistently implemented these systems.

With emerging technologies like AI, how do you see their impact on Maruti Suzuki? Could you share some high-impact AI use cases?

AI is the talk of the town, and we too are actively working in this area. However, we don’t adopt AI just because it’s a trend — we focus on use cases that genuinely add value.

One of the most critical aspects of AI is having AI-ready data. We are fortunate to have rich, high-quality data coming from various sources — customer interactions via our DMS, production systems, operational machines, sensors, and PLCs. This makes it easier for us to implement AI-driven solutions.

We have three dedicated teams focusing on AI and emerging technologies:

AI Use Case Team – Identifies and implements AI opportunities across the business.

Data Management Team – Curates and prepares data for AI models.

AI Scale & Analytics Team – Builds platforms that allow users to interact with data through natural language queries.

Our AI-based systems now provide insights across sales, distribution, marketing, supply chain, production, and quality.

A few notable use cases include:

Quality Improvement: Using data from sensors and measurement systems, especially in areas like casting and forging, we’ve improved product quality significantly.

Safety & Vigilance: As a Japanese company, safety is a top priority. We use AI for workplace safety, analyzing employee movements and ergonomics to identify risky postures and prevent accidents.

Office Productivity: Employees use AI tools such as document summarization and in-house GPT-based platforms for content creation, report generation, and automation.

Operational Efficiency: AI has been deployed to enhance production and process optimization.

India’s startup ecosystem is thriving. How is Maruti Suzuki engaging with startups to strengthen its innovation pipeline?

Innovation and experimentation cannot happen in isolation. We strongly believe in building ecosystems and partnering with startups.

To encourage this, we launched the Mobility & Automobile Innovation Lab (MAIL), a program fully funded by Maruti Suzuki. It provides startups with mentorship, financial support, and collaboration opportunities. The program has different phases — Accelerate, Incubate, and Collaborate — through which startups are assessed and nurtured.

Till now, we’ve scanned over 5,000 startups in India and have started expanding to Japan and Germany. Out of these, we’ve shortlisted around 150 startups for active collaboration, and over 30 have already become our technology partners.

What’s unique is that our relationship with these startups isn’t merely that of a vendor and customer — it’s a true partnership. Our dedicated Digital Enterprise Group oversees this innovation effort, ensuring that these collaborations deliver value.

Maruti Suzuki is already a market leader. What are your technology priorities for the next two to three years?

There are three key areas we’re focusing on for the future:

Driving India’s Global EV Leadership:
We aim to lead India’s electric vehicle transformation through innovation. You might have seen our EV model that was recently appreciated by the Hon’ble Prime Minister. We’re working toward making India a global leader in EVs, with our Gujarat plant playing a key role.

Building AI Excellence In-House:
We plan to develop our own AI and Large Language Model (LLM) capabilities, focused on real business outcomes rather than academic experiments. The goal is to make AI a strategic differentiator across all functions — from customer experience to manufacturing.

Data and Analytics as a Strategic Advantage:
We see data as a key competitive asset. Our aim is to leverage analytics across production, quality, supply chain, and customer relationship management to drive business transformation.

You’ve been with Maruti Suzuki for many years. What are some key learnings from your experience, especially in today’s fast-changing technology landscape?

The biggest learning for me is that whatever technology you adopt must add value to the business. Business objectives must always come first.

Equally important is knowing what not to do. In today’s world, where new technologies emerge every day, it’s easy to get distracted. But if you’re clear about what doesn’t add value, your path becomes much easier.

At Maruti Suzuki, this philosophy has guided us — adopting technology not for its novelty, but for its impact on customers, quality, and operational excellence