- India's AI Momentum Index rose to 62.8 in Q3 2026, above the global average of 61.7
- All surveyed Indian businesses reported at least one active AI project underway
- AI investment score reached 84, with 69% expecting stable or increased spending
India's AI Momentum Index rose to 62.8 in the third quarter of 2026, up from 61.0 at the start of the year, pulling ahead of the global average of 61.7, according to Dun & Bradstreet's quarterly survey of around 300 business leaders across 17 sectors.
The index, built on eight equally weighted dimensions including investment, ROI, workforce readiness and risk mitigation, places India among the leading AI adoption markets globally. It ranks ahead of Indonesia, Australia and Japan, though behind Taiwan and South Korea.
Adoption turns universal
Every business surveyed reported at least one AI-related project underway, with none saying they had no AI activity at all. Of these, 44% remain in the planning or piloting stage, 30% are scaling pilots into production, 19% have embedded AI across multiple core processes, and 7% have moved to agentic AI workflows that drive complex decisions with minimal human intervention.
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AI play: Here's how things stand in Asia
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Investment holds, ROI still patchy
India's AI investment score stood at 84 in Q3, the highest of the eight tracked metrics and comfortably above the neutral 50 mark. No respondent expects AI spending to decline over the next 12 months; 56% expect a moderate increase and 13% a significant one, while 31% expect spending to stay flat.
Returns remain uneven. India's ROI score rose to 48, still below the neutral threshold. Half of businesses report only "pockets" of ROI from scattered pilots, 27% see minimal or early-stage returns, and just 23% report broad or strong ROI across multiple projects.
Workforce is the weak link
Technology and data infrastructure are outpacing people. Enterprise data readiness (63) and AI risk mitigation (62) both scored above the global average, and technology stack readiness climbed to 65. Workforce readiness, however, slipped to 58, the only dimension among India's scores to fall quarter-on-quarter, with just a third of firms describing their workforce as strongly or very strongly AI-ready.
Confidence in managing AI risks such as bias, privacy and compliance has strengthened, with 89% of respondents reporting moderate to high confidence, though only 10% describe it as high.
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