Zomato-parent Eternal is preparing to enter the consumer AI assistant market with a proposition that takes aim at one of the technology industry's biggest concerns: privacy. Called Dark.ai, the upcoming service promises end-to-end encryption that, according to Eternal, will prevent even the company from reading users' conversations. It is designed for founders, researchers, scientists, enterprises and governments that handle sensitive information and cannot risk exposing confidential ideas or discussions.
Goyal unveiled the initiative in Eternal's second-quarter shareholders' letter on Wednesday, with the company targeting a global launch by the end of 2026. Dark.ai is currently being tested internally.
The product will run on fine-tuned open-weight AI models hosted on Eternal's own infrastructure. It will also feature an encrypted memory layer controlled by users, allowing the assistant to retain context across conversations without giving the company access to that information.
Dark.ai's second differentiator is how it responds. Goyal said the models have been fine-tuned to deliver high-quality answers rather than simply tell users what they want to hear. The pitch is aimed at people who hesitate to use mainstream AI assistants for sensitive work because they do not know how their conversations might be stored, reviewed or used. For companies and researchers, that uncertainty can restrict how much information they share with AI tools.
Eternal has not yet disclosed Dark.ai's pricing, investment requirements or the business entity that will house the product. The company has said it plans to reveal model benchmarks soon.
Deepinder Goyal, Founder of Eternal, says that there is growing conversation around AI agents that shop on behalf of consumers. He adds that, "The prevailing narrative is simplistic: agents will become the default commerce interface, and platforms that fail to adapt will be disintermediated. This echoes the narrative from 10 years ago that super apps would dominate everything. We continue to believe vertical commerce, at least in some categories, will have an edge over super apps, whether traditional or agentic.”
Eternal Q2 Results - Cons, YoY
- Net profit up 92.3% at Rs 125 crore vs Rs 65 crore YoY
- Revenue up 77.6% at Rs 24,138 crore vs Rs 13,590 crore YoY
- EBITDA at Rs 752 crore vs Rs 239 crore YoY
- EBITDA margin at 3.1% vs 1.8% YoY
Results Vs Estimates
- Net profit at Rs 125 crore vs estimate of Rs 304 crore
- Revenue at Rs 24,138 crore vs estimate of Rs 23,447 crore
- EBITDA at Rs 752 crore vs estimate of Rs 776 crore
- EBITDA margin at 3.1% vs estimate of 3.3%
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