India emerges as world's top marketing-led AI transformation market: Report
New Delhi, June 15
Around 53 per cent of Indian chief marketing officers projected 5-9 per cent incremental topline growth, against a global average of 43 per cent, the highest projection of any region in the survey, a report said on Monday.
The report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said Indian firms are taking direct ownership of AI investments, with 57 per cent of respondents saying that AI is funded by the marketing function, against 47 per cent global share, making India one of the most marketing-led AI investment markets in the world.
India leads globally in agentic commerce adoption, with 73 per cent of Indian CMOs ranking it among their top three strategic priorities, versus a global average of 63 per cent.
The report highlighted that 43 per cent of Indian CMOs said accelerating AI and digital transformation is their CEO's top priority and their expectations of marketing have increased significantly over the past two years, placing India among the highest globally.
Around 52 per cent of CMOs expect generative AI to have a significant positive impact on personalisation, the highest across all regions surveyed.
The firm conducted an annual survey of 300 CMOs and found that while 96 per cent say AI is driving end‑to‑end transformation, only about a third have used agents at scale and just 8 per cent run campaigns where multiple AI agents operate autonomously.
Roughly 27 per cent of Indian CMOs reported that accelerating AI and digital transformation is their CEO's number one priority, nearly twice the EMESA rate of 15 per cent and ahead of the North America average of 20 per cent.
"Ninety per cent of the CMOs agreed that GenAI is already reshaping how consumers discover and evaluate brands. But most marketing organisations are not yet built to compete in that environment," said Mark Abraham, Global Leader, Marketing, Sales and Pricing Practice, Boston Consulting Group, and coauthor of the report.
"Investment must now move beyond individual AI tools and towards fully connected agentic operating systems built on strong data foundations, brand intelligence layers, multi-agent orchestration, and the right talent," he added.
Around 88 per cent of Indian CMOs agreed that GenAI will help their teams sense signals and act in near real time, underscoring the speed imperative that defines India's AI marketing agenda.
— IANS
Reader Comments
Finally, Indian firms are taking technology seriously. The 57% marketing-funded AI stat is impressive - shows CMOs are not just waiting for IT to do everything. Hope the tier-2 cities also benefit from this transformation.
Interesting data but I wonder about the sample size - only 300 CMOs? Also, the gap between 96% saying AI drives transformation and only 8% running multi-agent campaigns is concerning. Sounds like there's still a lot of hype vs reality.
Great news! But as a small business owner, I hope this AI push doesn't widen the gap between big companies and MSMEs. The report mentions 'strong data foundations' - that's a huge challenge for smaller players in India.
The agentic commerce adoption at 73% is remarkable! Indian consumers are clearly digital-first. But the report should also address data privacy concerns - with all this AI tracking, we need stronger regulations. Thoughts?
As someone working in digital marketing, this resonates. The 52% expecting GenAI to boost personalization is spot on - we're already seeing it in action with hyper-targeted campaigns. But the talent gap is real; not enough people know how to build these 'connected agentic systems' mentioned in the article.
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