Anjali Sardana, the visionary behind the instant home service platform Pronto, is making a significant leap into the future of artificial intelligence. Her new venture, Provision Labs, has officially acquired Basilisk Industries, signaling a bold move to build technology for the physical world, often termed physical AI.
Pioneering Physical AI in India
Provision Labs, headquartered in San Francisco with operations expanding to Toronto and Bengaluru, is positioning itself as a crucial layer for data, evaluation, and deployment in the burgeoning field of physical AI. This technology aims to enable machines to perceive, understand, and interact seamlessly with their physical surroundings.
The acquisition brings Basilisk founder Shourya Watwani into Provision Labs as head of hardware. Under his leadership, the team has already made rapid progress, developing a metric 3D hand-tracking model, redesigning perception hardware, and creating an early version of a lightweight, high-fidelity tactile glove. While financial details remain undisclosed, the strategic value of this integration is clear.
From Household Help to Intelligent Machines
Sardana's ambition extends beyond simply streamlining household chores. Her existing platform, Pronto, which connects users with professionals for cleaning, laundry, and meal preparation, is now exploring a novel approach to generate training data for AI systems. Through Pronto’s opt-in “Verified programme,” the company is examining the use of anonymized recordings of real-world human activities performed during household tasks.
This initiative, however, has not been without controversy. Reports in May highlighted concerns around privacy and consent regarding camera-based recordings inside customers' homes. Sardana staunchly defends the program, emphasizing that participation is entirely voluntary and requires explicit customer opt-in. She argues that this approach is vital to ensure India's blue-collar workforce is not left behind in the rapidly advancing AI economy, allowing them to contribute to and benefit from the economic value created by AI development.
Empowering India's Blue-Collar Workforce
Sardana sees India's fragmented blue-collar workforce as central to the physical AI opportunity, not merely as a source of cheap labor or data, but as active participants and beneficiaries. She believes their everyday tasks hold immense potential for training intelligent machines, and that these workers deserve a share in the value generated.
Despite intense competition in the home services market when Pronto launched in 2025, Sardana's conviction drove its success. Today, Pronto continues to gain traction with growing bookings and rising average order values. Significantly, over half of the professionals enrolled in its Verified programme are reportedly earning more than Rs 40,000 a month, underscoring the platform's positive impact on livelihoods.
With the Basilisk acquisition, Sardana is now not only organizing human work but also actively building the foundational technology that will shape how machines learn to perform it, charting a course for physical AI in India and beyond.