Meet UltronAI: The Indian Startup Making AI Feel Human

Picture this: an AI agent that doesn’t just respond but connects—mimicking human warmth across text, voice, and video. That’s what  MetaBrix Labs is building. It’s an emerging Indian startup founded in 2022, and the creator of UltronAI. Forget clunky chatbots—this platform crafts hyper-realistic digital personas that morph into users in real-time.

Behind this innovation are Pratik Padamwar and his team who’ve quietly interfaced with healthcare providers to scale UltronAI’s impact. Their vision? Making human-like AI accessible—not as a luxury, but as the new standard for meaningful customer engagement. Pratik Padamwar,  Co-Founder & CEO, MetaBrix shares more insights, in a conversation with CIOL. Excerpts.

Can you tell us about your inspiration to develop UltronAI, and how MetaBrix Labs navigated the journey from idea to a leading first multi-modal AI agent platform?

Ultron AI was inspired by a vision of AI being more human, interactive, ubiquitous, and helpful across industries. Building Metabrix Labs, we recognized a huge gap in AI that was not emotionally intelligent, real-time adaptive, or multimodal. This left businesses particularly in healthcare, banking, insurance, and customer service finding it challenging to roll out AI that understood and engaged users. 

Our quest started with building AI agents that perceive the world the way humans do — see, hear, talk, and respond more naturally. These aren’t just chatbots, but fully-fledged AI personas providing immersive, interactive experiences in real-time. Leading multi-modal AI innovation with voice, vision, and text-ability, we have created a one-of-a-kind platform - Ultron AI for hyper-realistic AI co-hosts/assistants. Building this concept into industry-ready solutions required significant research and development, strategic partnership development, and rigorous real-world validation. Our first implementation was in healthcare, where we built AI assistants that would streamline hospital operations and improve patient experience.

The deployment of UltronAI at Belenus Champion Hospital has shown impressive results. Can you walk us through the most significant challenges in integrating AI into healthcare, and how UltronAI overcame them?

The implementation of Ultron AI at Belenus Champion Hospital led to major enhancements, however, the introduction of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare posed a number of issues. On adoption resistance, multiple hospitals reported issues surrounding trust, reliability, and staff buy-in. 

Ultron AI responded by promoting itself not as a rival to humans, but as a supplement to their work. By automating repetitive administrative work such as scheduling, answering patient questions, processing insurance, etc., hospital staff began to see the AI system as a helpful asset. Ultron AI's API-first, plug-and-play architecture enabled seamless integration with existing hospital infrastructure while maintaining established workflows, defeating integration challenges posed by legacy Hospital Management Systems (HMS) and Electronic Health Records (EHR).

Compliance was achieved with HIPAA, GDPR, and local regulations by implementing end-to-end encryption, role-based access controls, and providing on-premises deployment options. The multilingual aspect of the system also posed a challenge, as patients often encountered barriers when communicating in a non-native tongue, so we needed AI that understood their native tongue.

While healthcare is a clear beneficiary, what other industries do you see UltronAI transforming? Can you talk about more use cases that have emerged?

Absolutely! Ultron AI can automate processes using artificial intelligence, tailor interactions, and improve workflows across industries. In banking and financial services, Ultron AI's virtual assistants help manage customer inquiries, process loans, detect fraud, and tailor customer experiences by automating insurance claims and policy recommendations. Increased transaction ease and 24/7 support through AI-driven chatbots.

Ultron AI provides interactive AI co-hosts and digital avatars for content creators and streamers to automate real-world audience engagement, streamline moderation and FAQ management, and foster personalized connections to lighten workload load while increasing monetization opportunities through easy integration.

In retail and e-commerce, Ultron AI offers shopping assistants that provide personalized recommendations for products and services, assist with tracking orders, returns, and chatbot responses, and act as AI virtual shopping guides to streamline the in-store buying process.

Its government and smart city technology includes citizen service portals that process documents and allow citizens to make inquiries from a single point of contact, as well as disaster management systems that facilitate emergency response, and smart chatbots that provide information on government services.

Ultron AI concierges make bookings, provide travel recommendations, and help plan itineraries in hospitality and travel, multilingual AI agents facilitate communication with local services, and virtual tour guides offer immersive experiences.

In gaming and entertainment provides realistic interactive NPCs, audience-engaging AI co-hosts - for live streaming and virtual events, and AI Avatar for immersive storytelling and content creation. 

In education, for instance, Ultron AI tutors provide real-time learning support and interactive Q&A, offer immediate feedback for language learning, and deliver soft skills training for professional development, ultimately transforming how industries connect with their audiences in a human-like manner.

Today personalization is key to AI-driven engagement. What makes UltronAI’s digital personas more human-like and effective compared to other AI-driven customer service solutions?

Unlike traditional chatbots that merely respond to pre-programmed input, Ultron AI remembers a conversational context, identifies intent, and offers relevant solutions as a human assistant does. Due to their multilingual and culturally adaptive nature, they do wonders for global enterprises serving diverse customer populations. Provides easy multi-channel deployment (website, mobile application, kiosk, AR, VR) with a consistent brand experience in all places. Rather than merely answering questions, Ultron AI delivers a consistent experience, builds customer trust, and turns simple exchanges into interactive, genuine conversations that mirror human interaction.

Can you share details on your funding journey, key milestones, and what’s next for the company's growth?

As a multimodal AI agent platform, we have a proven track record for real value in healthcare, banking, insurance, and enterprise automation. The company raised 2.20 Cr in 2023 from 100X VC and angel investors as its first round of generations for initial research & development and product development. By the summer of 2024, Metabrix had over eight enterprise clients and had entered healthcare and banking automation, training its systems on data through October 2023. 

For the Korean market, we have signed a $3M MOU in the Korean language with Emotion Wave Technologies Korea, to develop AI agents. For FY 2025, the company has signed multi-year contracts with healthcare providers like Belenus Champion Hospital and has submitted tenders to the major banks in both UAE and Jordan. 

Plans include scaling international partnerships throughout the Middle East, India, and the USA. Seeking $2-5M strategic/VC funding for expansion support. Further, develop emotion-aware AI capabilities such as multilingual support and enterprise integration (using Metabrix's Ultron AI platform).