Introduction

As adoption of AI is increasing with the rapid rise in digitalization across organizations, NASSCOM partnered with Microsoft to launch AI Adoption Index for India which will enable organizations to understand and leverage the full potential of AI and help drive large-scale innovation and digital transformation. The Index will also help companies to benchmark their position on the AI maturity curve and identify gaps and build improved capabilities and solutions. The index, developed in support with EXL and Capgemini assesses AI adoption in India in four key sectors i.e., BFSI, CPG and Retail, Healthcare, and Industrials and Automotive.

The report maps AI maturity evolution to a four-stage journey starting from explorer to enthusiast and then to expert and finally an evangelist. Each sector is assigned a maturity score which is calculated based on performance across six dimensions which cover aspects related to AI strategy, investments, talent, technology and data readiness, innovation, and ethics and governance. Of the four sectors, Industrial & Automotive obtained the maximum score (2.52) followed by CPG and Retail (2.52), BFSI (2.42) and Healthcare (2.35).

In addition to this, the report also highlights the fact that India’s dream of becoming a trillion-dollar digital economy is strongly correlated to the rate of AI adoption. In fact, the report states that the four key sectors could contribute ~60% of AI’s potential value-add of $450-500 bn to India’s GDP by 2025.

The report also gives a sneak-peek into other important aspects on AI investments and budget allocations for AI initiatives, rising importance of Opex in AI investment approach and established frameworks for AI governance.  

Relevance of the Report

The report is a well-thought-out document that assesses AI maturity level at an enterprise level. The parameters of judgement are exhaustive and includes all aspects from strategy and budget to talent, IT readiness and AI governance. It also prudently categorizes organizations into separate buckets such as experts or explorers based on their maturity level.

 Key Takeaways

• NASSCOM’s AI Adoption Index is s India’s first enterprise-level AI adoption report
• The Index tracks and measures the rate of AI penetration among enterprises in India and arrives at a composite score both at the country-level and also at the sector level
• To ensure well-rounded assessment, six dimensions have been identified to evaluate the progress across factors
• BFSI, Industrial Automotive, CPG & Retail are the top sectors witnessing AI intervention
• There are impediments to AI adoption that have remained unchanged since 2020. They are low maturity of the external AI ecosystem (vendors, products, etc.), budgetary constraints and inability to objectively quantify the benefits of AI