Bud Ecosystem has been selected by Microsoft as one of its AI First Movers for FY26, a curated list of companies shaping the frontier of artificial intelligence across India and South Asia region. The recognition places Bud alongside enterprises such as Infosys, HCLTech, LTIMindtree, Tata Capital, and many other industry leaders in a cohort Microsoft identifies as defining what it means to lead in the age of AI.

The Microsoft AI First Movers programme spotlights organisations that have moved beyond pilot deployments to make AI central to how they operate, build, and compete. Microsoft India President Puneet Chandok, in his foreword to the FY26 edition, said “These firms offer a glimpse into the future of work and leadership — they are not just deploying AI as a tool to do more, but as a catalyst to imagine more. From AI native startups to global enterprises, these firms are defining what it means to lead in the age of AI. They are not waiting for the future. They are building it — one workflow, one Agent and one cultural shift at a time.“

The Bud AI Foundry brings model deployment, inference optimisation, guardrails, analytics, and governance into a single enterprise-grade platform. Strategic partnerships with Intel, Microsoft, Infosys, and LTIMindtree have extended that capability across global markets. The company has also contributed over 20 open-source models to the research community, including large language and diffusion models, and topped the Hugging Face leaderboard with a model benchmarking comparably to GPT-3.5.

Jithin VG, Founder and CEO of Bud Ecosystem, said: “At Bud, our mission is simple: to democratize GenAI by commoditizing it. We believe that access to this transformative technology should be as universal as access to electricity or the internet. By breaking down the barriers of cost, infrastructure, and technical complexity, we’re enabling every organization to innovate, create, and compete on a truly level playing field.”

Bud’s full story is available at microsoft.com/frontier-ai