Indian Businesses Increase AI Spending Despite Data Readiness Gaps
Indian companies are leading global AI adoption and autonomy but struggle to quantify financial returns and maintain data readiness for scaling.
Indian enterprises are aggressively expanding their artificial intelligence investments, though they face significant hurdles in data infrastructure and financial measurement. According to a report by Dun & Bradstreet, approximately 69 percent of Indian businesses plan to increase AI spending over the next year. While 70 percent expect the technology to drive new products or operational improvements, only 3 percent describe their enterprise data as fully ready to support AI at scale, trailing the global average of 8 percent.
Parallel findings from Avanade and Vanson Bourne indicate that Indian firms are granting AI systems more autonomy than their global peers. About 28 percent of Indian business leaders allow generative AI to complete tasks end-to-end without human approval, compared to a 19 percent global average. Despite high confidence in productivity gains, 75 percent of these leaders state that AI has not yet delivered returns that justify the expenditure, and 74 percent have not formally calculated their return on investment.
Industry leaders note that while Indian firms are moving past pilot projects faster than other markets, the next phase of growth depends on bridging the data-readiness gap. Integration with core systems and data limitations remain the primary barriers to achieving a measurable financial advantage.
