Indian enterprises are leading in the adoption and experimentation with artificial intelligence as compared to the global average, according to a report by data integration, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) service provider Qlik.
Indian businesses show an edge in AI familiarity, with 79% of enterprises reporting awareness, compared to the global average of 59%. Additionally, 56% of Indian enterprises prioritise operational optimisation when deploying AI-led solutions, surpassing the global average of 48%.
“In India, 57% of executives view AI as essential for achieving strategic goals and boosting profitability. However, many organizations struggle to transition from planning to execution due to challenges such as skills gaps, governance issues, trust deficits, and resource constraints,” the report stated.
The study surveyed 4,200 respondents, including C-Suite executives and AI decision-makers, in November 2024. It explored AI adoption trends, challenges, and deployment strategies, particularly the growing preference for ‘buy-to-build’ solutions.
India leads globally in the number of AI projects across planning, development, and implementation stages. However, the country also reports the highest number of stalled or canceled AI projects, averaging 22.2 per enterprise compared to 15.7 globally and 18.5 in the Asia-Pacific region.
This, Qlik reports, reflects aggressive experimentation with AI use cases by Indian enterprises.
In terms of critical gaps preventing AI adoption in India, the report said that 31% Indian businesses lack access to talent required to develop AI, 18% face difficulties in rolling out developed solutions and 26% of AI decision-makers cited insufficient access to trusted data as additional obstacle.
Further, 28% of respondents cited data governance challenges as a major roadblock, while 25% pointed to budget constraints as a critical hurdle.
“India has the talent and ambition to play a key role in the global AI landscape. To make this happen, we need to focus on developing AI skills, building trust in AI, and helping businesses address challenges around governance and resources. AI is already making an impact across industries, but to fully realize its potential, organisations must tackle issues of trust, data governance, and skills shortages,” Varun Babbar, managing director – India, Qlik said.
For this, he added, collaboration between businesses, governments, and educational institutions to strengthen AI capabilities and build trust in these technologies is required.
As a result, there is an increased confidence in outsourcing AI solutions to fit the requirement of an enterprise with 78% of Indian AI leaders seeing value in leveraging ‘ready-made’ AI solutions as a starting point to accelerate deployment and ROI.
