As the digital economy accelerates, enterprise adoption of AI-driven cloud systems is gaining new momentum across sectors from banking to healthcare. In an interview with Fe, Shailesh Singla, vice president, cloud applications, Oracle, explains how the company is shaping its AI roadmap around agility, trust, and scale while deepening its cloud applications footprint in the region. Excerpts:
Q. How is Oracle shaping its AI roadmap to deliver agility, trust, and scale for enterprises across industries?
The Indian AI market is projected to reach $ 17 billion by 2027, driven by strong enterprise technology investments, a maturing digital ecosystem, and robust public-private funding. Oracle is shaping its AI roadmap with three core pillars: agility, trust, and scale to empower enterprises with a unified, secure, and high-performing cloud foundation. With AI embedded into the portfolio of Oracle fusion cloud applications, organisations are able to unlock automation, predictive insights, and intelligent decision-making across every business function. Built on Oracle’s cloud infrastructure and unified data model, this architecture ensures seamless integration, faster innovation, and uncompromised data security. Our approach focuses on bringing AI to where business happens, ensuring it’s contextually aware, scalable, and results driven.
Q. Are you seeing a shift in technology priorities, particularly around cloud and AI in India? Which sectors are driving the fastest adoption of AI-powered cloud applications?
We are seeing a shift where businesses are not just investing in technology but strategically leveraging AI to drive greater efficiency, agility, and intelligence across operations. The impact of this shift is clearly visible in our growth numbers. Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications India continues to be one of the top contributors to Oracle JAPAC (Japan and Asia-Pacific), with financial services and hi-tech/ITES sectors alone growing over 100% in SaaS during Q1 FY25. The momentum is particularly strong in BFSI and healthcare, which recorded 37% and 64% YoY growth, respectively. Within BFSI, NBFCs have emerged as a major growth driver, with Oracle adding one to two new NBFC customers every month. Sectors like healthcare, financial services, and digital-first enterprises are leading this transformation by embedding AI and automation within their core processes. For instance, Apollo Hospitals, Fortis Hospitals, and Aster DM Healthcare are leveraging Oracle fusion cloud applications to improve operational efficiency and patient experience, while unicorns like PhonePe, BigBasket, Flipkart, and Lenskart are using our cloud solutions to enhance scalability and customer engagement.
Q. As Oracle expands its market footprint, what has been the growth trajectory of the cloud applications business in the context of India’s rapidly growing digital economy?
Oracle’s applications business in India continues to be a strategic growth engine within JAPAC, driven by strong customer demand for modernisation and intelligent automation. In Q1 FY26, Oracle fusion cloud Applications recorded over 60% growth, with Oracle fusion cloud customer experience (CX emerging as the biggest catalyst, supported by wins such as the department of income tax and RBL Bank. We are also seeing accelerated adoption across hospitality, logistics, and consumer sectors, where customers like The Indian Hotels Company, Kavery Hospitals, and Care Hospitals are leveraging Oracle fusion cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) and Oracle fusion cloud customer experience (CX) platforms to enhance scalability, efficiency, and performance.
Q. Oracle recently introduced embedded AI agents within its cloud applications portfolio. How are these innovations redefining business processes across ERP, EPM, SCM and HCM?
At Oracle, we are reimagining how work gets done by embedding AI directly into business workflows through Oracle fusion cloud applications. The newly introduced AI agents across the cloud applications portfolio including business functions – from enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, and human capital management to customer experience are enabling organisations to automate routine tasks, surface contextual insights, and enable continuous, data-driven decision-making. Built using our AI agent studio for fusion applications, these prebuilt and secure agents run natively on Oracle cloud infrastructure and are available at no additional cost. Recently, we expanded this innovation further with new agents for supply chain and manufacturing that optimise planning, procurement, and logistics, empowering planners, managers, and logistics teams to make faster, smarter decisions. Together, these embedded AI agents are redefining enterprise operations, helping businesses accelerate execution, enhance accuracy, and achieve measurable outcomes across every function.
