Majority of Indian executives yet to see AI productivity gains

Artificial intelligence implementation has accelerated rapidly across Indian enterprises in recent years, with organisations across sectors rushing to integrate the technology into their operations. However, a significant disconnect exists between adoption rates and actual business outcomes, with the vast majority of corporate leaders expressing disappointment in the results to date.

The disparity highlights a critical challenge facing Indian businesses as they navigate the AI transition. While companies have invested substantially in AI infrastructure and tools, translating this investment into measurable productivity improvements has proven considerably more difficult than anticipated. Factors contributing to this gap include implementation challenges, workforce readiness issues, and difficulties in identifying optimal use cases within existing business processes.

Executives point to various obstacles hampering AI's effectiveness, including the need for significant organisational restructuring, workforce retraining requirements, and integration complexities with legacy systems prevalent in many Indian firms. Additionally, unclear return on investment calculations and unrealistic initial expectations have contributed to the sense of unfulfilled promise surrounding the technology.

Industry analysts suggest that businesses achieving success with AI tend to adopt a more measured approach, focusing on specific, high-impact applications rather than broad-based deployment. As the technology matures and organisations develop greater expertise in implementation, expectations are that productivity gains will eventually materialise, though timelines remain uncertain for many firms currently in the early stages of their AI journey.