Ola Cabs has announced its complete transition from Google Maps to its proprietary Ola Maps for all its operations, achieving significant annual savings of approximately ₹100 crore.
The move, confirmed by Ola Group's co-founder and chairman Bhavish Aggarwal on the social media platform X, marks a major shift in the company's mapping and location services strategy.
According to Aggarwal, Ola previously incurred an annual expenditure of ₹100 crore on Google Maps services. By developing and fully integrating Ola Maps into their operations, the company has effectively reduced this cost to zero.
This strategic shift not only enhances Ola's operational efficiency but also grants the company greater autonomy over its mapping solutions. Aggarwal encouraged users to update their Ola apps to ensure seamless access to the new in-house mapping features.
Aggarwal hinted at a range of new features that will soon be available on Ola Maps. These include street view, indoor images, NERFs (neural radiance fields), drone maps, and 3D maps.
These enhancements are expected to significantly improve the user experience and provide more comprehensive mapping and navigation services.
This announcement follows Ola Group's earlier transition of its entire workload from Microsoft Azure to Krutrim, the company's in-house AI firm. In May, Bhavish Aggarwal announced on X that Ola would complete the transition to Krutrim within a week.
Krutrim AI, launched by Ola, offers not only AI solutions but also cloud services and mapping capabilities, further solidifying Ola's commitment to in-house technological advancements.
Aggarwal also shared plans for ongoing product updates on Krutrim Cloud, indicating a continuous stream of innovations. He mentioned that he would start a weekly product announcement thread on X to keep users informed about new developments and features being rolled out.
Beyond just mapping, Ola Maps aims to offer advanced location intelligence services, leveraging AI computation to provide more accurate and insightful data. This expansion into location intelligence underscores Ola's broader vision of integrating advanced technologies into its service offerings.
Ola's development of Ola Maps is rooted in its strategic acquisition of GeoSpoc, a Pune-based provider of geospatial services, in October 2021. This acquisition has played a crucial role in building Ola's capabilities in the geospatial domain, enabling the company to create robust and innovative mapping solutions in-house.