Smallest AI, a San Francisco-based foundational AI research lab, has appointed Siddharth Sharma as President of Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) for India. Sharma will lead revenue growth, partnerships and market expansion in the sector, working directly with co-founder and CEO Sudarshan Kamath.
Announced on October 26, 2026, the appointment comes as Indian banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and insurers increasingly explore voice AI solutions for customer service and collections. The company raised $21 million in July 2026 and is looking to expand its presence in India’s financial services market.
Smallest AI develops its own speech recognition and speech synthesis models, supports more than 14 Indian languages alongside English, and offers self-hosted deployment within customers’ own infrastructure. These capabilities are particularly relevant to regulated financial institutions that need to protect sensitive customer data.
Siddharth Sharma Brings Over 20 Years of BFSI Experience
Sharma has more than 20 years of experience across banking and financial services, having worked with ICICI, YES Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and CRED. He has also held a leadership position at CashFlo.
At CRED, Sharma led partnerships with banks and financial institutions. At Kotak Mahindra Bank, he served as Vice President and Head of Go-to-Market for Digital Initiatives.
Earlier, as Senior Vice President at YES Bank, he worked across several digital payment systems, including the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), digital wallets, the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) and the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS).
Most recently, Sharma served as Vice President, Credit and Strategy, at CashFlo.
Based in Mumbai, he will lead Smallest AI’s go-to-market strategy for banks, NBFCs, insurance companies and other financial services partners. His responsibilities will include building the company’s partner network and expanding the deployment of its voice agents across collections, customer servicing and onboarding.
Voice AI for Banking and Financial Services
Smallest AI’s appointment comes amid growing demand for voice-based automation that can communicate naturally with customers in their preferred languages while meeting the security requirements of financial institutions.
The company’s technology is designed to handle high-volume conversations, including loan collection calls and customer service interactions. Its support for self-hosted deployment allows financial institutions to run the technology within their own infrastructure, helping them maintain control over sensitive data.
Sudarshan Kamath, co-founder and CEO of Smallest AI, said BFSI has become one of the company’s strongest business verticals in India. He noted that the sector requires local leadership that understands how banks assess, govern and scale technology solutions.
Kamath added that Sharma’s experience in building digital banking businesses and financial partnerships would support the company’s efforts to serve customers as its BFSI business grows.
Sharma said Indian banks need voice AI that can operate in customers’ languages over real telephone lines and handle conversations at the scale required by large loan portfolios, without sensitive information leaving the institution’s control.
He identified collections and customer service as areas where this requirement is particularly significant. Sharma also highlighted the importance of combining proprietary speech models with the ability to deploy the technology within a bank’s own infrastructure.
He said he was looking forward to working with Kamath and the Smallest AI team to address these requirements across the financial services sector.
About Smallest AI
Smallest AI is a foundational AI research lab headquartered in San Francisco, building real-time voice AI infrastructure for enterprises. Its technology includes speech recognition, speech generation and speech-to-speech systems designed to support natural, scalable conversations across customer service, healthcare, financial services and other high-volume communication environments.
The company serves enterprises globally through its Voice 4.0 platform and proprietary AI models, including Lightning TTS and Pulse STT.
Smallest AI is backed by Seligman Ventures, Sierra Ventures, 3one4 Capital, Better Capital, Upsparks Capital, Schema Ventures, Tiny VC, DeVC and Mission Street Capital, along with other angel investors.
With Sharma’s appointment, the company is strengthening its local leadership as it looks to expand partnerships and deploy voice AI solutions across India’s banking, lending, insurance and financial services ecosystem.
-By Shivani Solanki
