From Experimentation To Impact: Indian Enterprises Place ROI At Heart Of AI
Organisations expect artificial intelligence to benefit in areas like innovation, revenue generation, cost saving and increased employee productivity.
Indian enterprises are moving beyond experimenting with artificial intelligence to maximising the impact of their AI investments.
According to a study commissioned by IBM, Indian organisations expect AI to benefit in areas like innovation (26%), revenue generation (21%), cost saving (12%), and increased employee productivity (12%).
In 2025, the focus of AI investments for Indian organisations will be on enhancing customer experience (27%), planning and strategy (16%), and optimisation of IT functions (16%). However, to realise these goals, organisations must address challenges like data accessibility issues (46%), limited AI skills (42%), and difficulty in integration and scaling (38%).
Enterprise focus is shifting from low-risk, non-core use cases to deploying generative AI in core business functions for competitive advantage and improved ROI. Nearly 60% of surveyed organisations across the Asia-Pacific region anticipate realising the benefits of their AI investments within two to five years. Only 11% expect returns within the next two years.
According to the study, the five AI trends in the region include:
AI-Led Revenue Generation: Organisations are expected to adopt a "strategic AI" approach in 2025, prioritising projects based on feasibility and business impact. The challenge is how to scale AI through use cases that maximise revenue opportunities and ROI.
Smaller Specialised Open-Source Models: Purpose-built models will be in demand, including those designed for local languages, nuanced regional contexts and simpler computational tasks.
New Tools For Visibility, Governance, And AI Integration: Asia-Pacific organisations will increasingly leverage open-source AI models to drive innovation and efficiency. "Unified AI" with orchestration tools will help streamline the management around these solutions.
Agentic AI: Enterprises will increasingly devise agentic workflows, powered by AI agents, to autonomously execute tasks, collaborate with human workers and drive value across.
Human-Centred Innovation: While productivity tools have been a major focus of AI adoption, enterprises will leverage AI to enhance human experiences and capabilities. Human-centric AI approaches will help augment employee roles, automate routine tasks, and unlock new opportunities for creativity and innovation.
