Exit Google Maps, move to Ola Maps: Bhavish Aggarwal urges Indian developers

Ola founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal on Monday (July 8) urged Indian developers to shun Google Maps and wooed them with one-year free access to Ola Maps.

In a post on his X (formerly Twitter), Aggarwal highlighted how its in-house navigation tool is "outperforming" rivals on key metrics like location accuracy, search accuracy, search latency and ETA accuracy.

Aggarwal's social media post comes days after his announcement that Ola has exited Google Maps and shifted to its in-house navigation tools and technologies for cab operations.

The top honcho of Ola who has in the past championed the cause of India's digital sovereignty argued that the Western apps to map India have been used for "too long".

Stating that such systems fail to recognise unique challenges such as street names, urban changes and complex traffic, Aggarwal asserted that Ola Maps tackles these issues with AI-powered India-specific algorithms and real-time data from millions of vehicles.

"After #ExitAzure, it’s time for Indian developers to #ExitGoogleMaps! 1 YEAR FREE access to all developers to Ola Maps on @Krutrim, more than Rs 100 crore in free credits!" he wrote in the X post.

He claimed that the in-house tool is outperforming competitors on location accuracy, Search accuracy, Search latency and other key metrics.

Aggarwal's post shared a "deep dive" blog on Ola Maps. On the blog, under the title "Redefining Location Intelligence", Ola Maps says, "Your Maps, Your Way. We believe in providing the power of location intelligence to everyone. Built in India, for the world."

"Ola Maps Platform stands out with its cloud-native architecture and GenAI capabilities. Our distinctive features include dynamic rerouting, traffic signals on maps, and probe-supported data, setting us apart from other competitors," it added.

"We’ve been using Western apps to map India for too long and they don’t get our unique challenges: street names, urban changes, complex traffic, non-standard roads etc. Ola Maps tackles these with AI-powered India-specific algorithms, real-time data from millions of vehicles, leveraging and contributing massively to open source (5 million plus edits just last year!)," according to his post.

The Ola founder in May this year announced that Ola will snap ties with Microsoft’s Azure cloud and shift workloads to cloud service of its sister firm Krutrim AI.

Last week, Aggarwal declared that Ola Cabs has fully exited Google Maps and will be using its own in-house Ola Maps, leading to lucrative savings for the company.

"After Azure exit last month, we’ve now fully exited Google Maps. We used to spend Rs 100 crore a year but we’ve made that zero this month by moving completely to our in-house Ola maps!" he said.