Indian Companies Bullish on Long-Term AI Investments; 76% Surveyed Firms Achieved ROI-Driven Results: IBM Study

A research study commissioned by computing giant IBM revealed on Wednesday that most Indian companies made significant progress in executing their AI strategies last year. 

The study surveyed over 2,000 IT decision-makers worldwide, 224 of whom were from India. Among the ones surveyed in the country, 87% reported progress in their AI strategy, and 76% revealed that they had achieved results driven by return on investment (ROI).

About 89% of the Indian respondents said their companies have started more than 10 AI pilots in the last year. Furthermore, 93% of the Indian respondents said they will increase their AI investments this year. 

The majority of them reported looking for open-source solutions, and 48% revealed that more than half of the AI solutions being used are based on open-source technologies.

Among the companies that are yet to achieve ROI-driven results from AI projects, 33% expect to see savings within the next 12 months, and all of them believe they will achieve a positive ROI within three years. 

Only 1% of the surveyed Indian respondents revealed that their AI strategy had not made progress. 

The surveyed Indian companies revealed that they are focusing their AI investments this year on IT operations, software coding, and data quality management.  

The detailed report from IBM, outlining the findings from multiple countries worldwide, can be found here. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday spoke at the AI Action Summit in Paris, where he said that India leads in AI adoption. According to him, India has one of the world’s largest AI talent pools. 

“India is building its own large language model. Considering our diversity, we also have a unique public-private partnership model for pooling resources like computing power,” he added. In this year’s Budget, the government allocated ₹2,000 crore for the IndiaAI mission – nearly a fifth of the scheme’s ₹10,370 crore announced last year. 

Moreover, AIM recently reported that Indian companies and startups are increasingly using AI-enabled coding tools. Although companies were initially hesitant to adopt such tools, they are now leaning toward them due to their benefits. 

Furthermore, a recent survey by GitHub revealed that 56% of Indian developers are using AI tools to help them boost their chances for employment owing to the skills they develop. Moreover, around 80% of them believe AI tools have improved code quality.