A new study, The IDC Data and AI Pulse: Asia Pacific 2024, commissioned by SAS, reveals that although Indian organizations are rapidly adopting AI, 15% still in the evaluation and planning stages, and 44% have a short-term or functional focus in their AI deployment. Hence it is not surprising that only 18% of Indian businesses are identified as AI Leaders, highlighting a significant gap between those driving long-term transformational change and the majority that are experimenting without a defined AI strategy.
Of those surveyed, AI Leaders in India indicated their top business outcomes from AI initiatives are focused on expanding market share, improving employee productivity, and saving costs.
Despite the enthusiasm around AI’s potential for driving business growth, Indian companies continue to face implementation challenges – 37% of executives cited the costs associated with AI development and deployment as a hurdle while 27% cited the lack of compelling business cases or difficulty in realising ROI. Additionally, 32% of executives reported struggling with data governance processes, further complicating AI deployment.
Addressing these challenges, the study highlights the importance of boosting infrastructure investments and leveraging data platforms to enhance AI performance. Computational power, continuous data monitoring, and data privacy/security remain essential for ensuring robust and trustworthy AI solutions.
Indian enterprises are also working to implement responsible AI platforms by focusing on explainability, human oversight, and bias mitigation. About 35% of executives indicated that their AI platforms are designed with explainable AI techniques, ensuring transparency and accountability. The study also indicates that leveraging data platforms and advanced model management techniques like ModelOps will help Indian enterprises enhance operational efficiency, enabling real-time insights and streamlined decision-making processes.
Commenting on the survey, Noshin Kagalwalla, Vice President & Managing Director, SAS India, said: “Indian companies are undoubtedly making progress in AI adoption, but significant work remains. The challenge lies not only in deploying AI but also in a way that it is trustworthy, scalable, and aligned with long-term business objectives. Strategic investments in data governance and AI infrastructure will be crucial to driving sustainable AI performance across industries in India.”
“The disparity in target outcomes between AI Leaders and AI Followers demonstrates a lack of clear strategy and roadmap. Where AI Followers are focused on short-term, productivity-based results, AI Leaders have moved beyond these to more complex functional and industry use cases,” said Shukri Dabaghi, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific and EMEA Emerging at SAS.
“As businesses look to capitalise on the transformative potential of AI, it’s important for business leaders to learn from the differences between an AI Leader and an AI Follower. Avoiding a ‘gold rush’ way of thinking ensures long-term transformation is built on trustworthy AI and capabilities in data, processes and skills,” said Mr. Dabaghi.
“The IDC Data and AI Pulse: Asia Pacific 2024 study is an important snapshot of how hundreds of large APAC organisations are approaching adoption and implementation of AI, highlighting the leaders and followers across industries,” said Chris Marshall, Vice President, Data, Analytics, AI, Sustainability, and Industry Research at IDC Asia/Pacific. “These insights give us the opportunity to unpack the barriers to successful AI implementation, allowing businesses to make wiser investments into these new and emerging technologies, without being caught-up in the gold rush”.