Indian firms accelerate AI adoption and returns; only 4 pc have data readiness
New Delhi, Aug 4
Indian businesses are accelerating investments in artificial intelligence and reporting measurable returns, but only four per cent felt their enterprise data is fully ready to scale AI, a report said on Tuesday.
The report from Dun & Bradstreet said 100 per cent of surveyed Indian organisations have AI projects underway, with 69 per cent planning to increase AI investments and 73 per cent seeing measurable returns from those initiatives.
Adoption stages varied across enterprises, with 44 per cent in planning or piloting stage and 30 per cent scaling AI into production.
Nearly 19 per cent of firms operationalised AI across multiple core processes and 7 per cent are deploying agentic AI workflows, the report added.
"Indian businesses are moving quickly from AI experimentation to enterprise adoption, with growing evidence of business value and return on investment," said Julian Prower, Executive Vice President, Global Business Operations & Transformation and Managing Director & CEO, India & Taiwan, Dun & Bradstreet.
Data readiness remained the main constraint with only 4 per cent of organisations feeling their enterprise data is fully ready to support AI at scale. Nearly 58 per cent described their enterprise data as partially ready and 30 per cent considered it mostly ready. The findings suggest a wide gap between data that can support early AI progress and data that is ready to support scaled, repeatable ROI across the enterprise.
"The findings suggested that enterprise AI is entering a new phase of maturity, as organisations are increasingly seeing value from AI but still face a harder challenge in scaling those returns consistently across the enterprise," the report said.
Investment intent was seen as strong, with 56 per cent of respondents expecting a moderate increase in AI spending and 13 per cent expecting a significant rise.
Nearly 31 per cent expect AI spending to remain at current levels, reflecting continued commitment to AI initiatives.
No respondents anticipated a decline in AI spending, the report noted.
The firm highlighted that 73 per cent of organisations saw some level of measurable return from AI investments.
Nearly 50 per cent of organisations reported return on investment in specific pockets of the business, and 23 per cent reported broad or strong ROI across multiple projects.
— IANS
Reader Comments
As someone working in the tech sector, this resonates deeply. Our leadership is pushing AI hard, but the ground reality is that most of our enterprise data is scattered across legacy systems. 58% partially ready is actually generous — I'd say most companies don't even know what data they have! Time to invest in data governance, folks.
Interesting to see the contrast. In the West, we're debating AI ethics and regulation; in India, you're just going full speed ahead. The 73% seeing ROI is impressive, but the data readiness gap could become a serious bottleneck. Maybe slow down a bit and build that foundation first?
This is the classic Indian jugaad approach — we'll figure it out as we go! 😄 But jokes aside, we need a serious national push on data quality standards. If even 30% think they're 'mostly ready,' we're fooling ourselves. AI is only as good as the data it learns from, and our datasets are notoriously messy.
The numbers don't lie, but they don't tell the whole story either. 100% have AI projects, yet only 30% have scaled into production? That suggests a lot of pilot purgatory. India needs to focus on change management and upskilling, not just tech spend. Otherwise, we'll have a lot of expensive demo projects collecting dust.
Proud to see Indian enterprises finally walking the talk on AI. The 73% ROI figure is encouraging, but I wish the report broke down returns by industry. IT services vs manufacturing vs retail — the story is very different. For every success story, there's
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