Within two years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will more than double the rate of innovation improvements and employee productivity gains in India, according to a survey of business leaders done by Microsoft-IDC Asia/Pacific. While 77% of business leaders polled agreed that AI is instrumental for their organization’s competitiveness, only one-third of organizations in India have embarked on their AI journeys.
Those companies that have adopted AI expect it to increase their competitiveness by 2.3 times in 2021. For businesses in India, the top reasons for adopting AI were higher competitiveness (24% of respondent chose it as number one driver), accelerated innovation (21%), better customer engagement (15%), higher margins (14%) as well as more productive employees (9%).
The top three challenges for adopting AI are a lack of advanced analytics or adequate infrastructure and tools to develop actionable insights; data strategy and data readiness are not seen as strategic priorities; and lack of thought leadership.
In India, a NITI Aayog paper last year had identified five focus areas where the gains could drive not just growth but greater inclusion—healthcare, agriculture, education, urban-/smart-city infrastructure, and transportation and mobility. The Microsoft-IDC study showed that to move ahead on their AI journeys, businesses have to create the right organizational culture.
Approximately half of workers surveyed, as well as a substantial proportion of business leaders believe that cultural traits that support AI journeys, such as risk-taking, proactive innovation, as well as cross-function partnerships among teams, are not pervasive today..
