In the recent past, "Artificial Intelligence" is a new buzzword that has found its way into everyone's lexicon, with few of us realising precisely what it means. Having said that, it cannot be denied that AI is affecting our lives in ways which we could never have imagined. This, without us even recognising. Not only our daily lives as consumers, 

AI is changing the way industry functions and in turn the way services are delivered.

And that too in a country like India which isn't as digitally connected as the first world. 

One experienced this more so during the COVID19 pandemic, where contactless services, such as payments, continue to drive the need for AI-related services in sectors such as eCommerce and Healthcare. 

According to a recent report, furnished by TAPMI & AIM, the Indian Artificial Intelligence market is valued at $7.8 billion as of Q3, 2021. This represents a 22 per cent increase in size of market over 2020.

Using advanced algorithms and ever-increasing computing power, AI is transforming organisations and the way business gets done. So much so that AI algorithms are now designed to make real-time decisions and interpret various types of data and media. Thereby, offering the end customer a more superior user experience, it posits. 

Industry banks on AI

AI has found its utility across a range of industries and functions. These include but aren't limited to industries, such as eCommerce, banking and finance (BFSI), healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing and even agriculture! 

One can see it being adopted across all mediums of interactions and transactions be it B2B, B2C, and, even C2C. Here, Data Science and Deep Learning are increasingly helping to solve complex business challenges. And this isn't limited to large corporations alone. While IT, technology and electronics continue to dominate the market, in terms of implementation and adoption of AI, small and medium, even boutique enterprise are seen benefiting from using AI. 

This is evinced in the findings of the above cited report, where, the combined market share of technology and allied MNCs is 32% this year, down from a market size of 36.2% in 2020. "The market size by Industries or Sectors is the highest across the IT Services sector, followed by the Technology sector (including Software and Hardware firms), with a market share of 35% and 23.3% respectively." Apart from the IT and Technology sectors, the BFSI sector has a market share of AI services at 9.6%, it adds.

"The Boutique Start-up company type/category has a combined market value of $555 Million, a very large jump from last year when the contribution of this combined segment was (a mere) $215 Million. Most of the jump is attributed to generic Analytics and Data Science firms and specialised AI firms," claims the report.

Clearly, AI is helping sectors do more with less. According to the report, AI is increasingly being adopted across Contact Center Customer Services (such as RPA-driven Chat Bots), Media Delivery (ML and AI-driven Social Media, Streaming content, and eCommerce recommendations), and Intelligent of Networks / Telecom Services, to name a few.

Apart from this, the report points out, Machine Learning and AI technologies are central to the functioning of consumer goods, or white goods, such as smartphones, Smart TVs, Household Appliances, and Automobiles.

Jobs in AI

AI is also altering the landscape of the prevailing job market. And it is key to note that a similar trend is noticable in the job markets as well, where, AI is no longer the fiefdom of just hardcore technologists

The field has seen a great deal of democratization with personnel from non-technology-related backgrounds too adopting AI processes in their functional roles. 

The report also puts forth some vital findings with respect to the AI jobs space. At present, there are close to 109,000 Artificial Intelligence personnel working in India across all enterprises and sectors. "This represents a 20% jump in personnel from last year (which was 91000)," the report states. 

The median salary of a person working in the AI sector is ₹14.3 Lakhs. Here, the highest median salaries are drawn by AI professionals in Mumbai, at ₹17.3 Lakhs, says the AMI-TAPMI report. 

Close to 14,500 open positions related to AI are currently available to be filled in India. "And Bengaluru tops the location for the highest proportion of open jobs," it adds. However, it's important to point out that the majority of these jobs are available in the entry level where starting salaries are ₹3 Lakhs, comparable to other non-AI fields. 

According to the report: the largest proportion of personnel are in the ₹3-6 Lakhs salary level at 23.5%. This is followed by the ₹6-10 Lakhs level that has 17.5% of the professionals. The mid-to-senior salary category ₹15-25 Lakhs has a proportion of salaries at 15.6%. 

The senior-level salary bracket of ₹25-50 Lakhs has a proportion of personnel at 11.6%. Finally, the leadership brackets with salaries greater than 50 Lakhs have a combined proportion of 3.6% (against 4.5% last year) of the personnel, with a break-up of 2.3% in the 50-75 Lakhs bracket, 0.9% in 75-100 Lakhs bracket, and 0.4% in the ₹1 Cr bracket. These data points exemplify the maturing nature and the demand for experienced and qualified personnel across the AI domain, adds the reports.

Likewise, companies across industries are seeking to develop AI capabilities along numerous levels of expertise.

"This is indicative of the growth of the AI domain in recent years, covering such capabilities as Recommendation Engines, AI in the Cloud, AI in Digital, Computer Vision, Robotics, and Natural Language Processing," it adds.

Moreover, the entry-level open job categories afford opportunities to freshers and junior-level professionals.

"In terms of industry, while the highest proportion of AI jobs advertised are in the IT and ITES sector – the overall proportion has drop from 71% last year to 62.9% this year – the jobs advertised across other industries and sectors indicates the opportunity that job seekers have to develop skills in these sectors and apply for suitable opportunities."

"Moreover, the opportunities across the remaining breadth of sectors covering BFSI, Pharma, eCommerce, and even the Government sector indicates the potential that AI offers in terms of industry-specific jobs across other sectors," it adds.

In toto, it can be forecasted, and the report points this out too, that the Artificial Intelligence market in India will continue to be the primary growth driver of the Data Science domain and the broader IT industry over the next few years. India was also ranked eighth in the top 10 countries by AI patent families on a global level. This is an impressive feat considering it had no patent filing in AI prior to 2002, according to a news report. So, one can safely assume that it is only up from here, when it comes to AI and India. 

Link to the original report