An upsurge in Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in India

The COVID-19 Pandemic has brought numerous challenges with its arrival. It has made businesses and organization in India to go for an option of adopting various Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. When compared with major economies such as the US, the UK, and Japan, India is the country that has the highest use of AI.Pandemic has enhanced the usage of automation as one of the trends. The adoption of artificial intelligence is not only limited to businesses but it is also getting adopted by economies to build up their AI capabilities as a means to augment growth.

“In order to combat the threats of the pandemic, Indian organizations are firmly engaged, with the manufacturing sector modifying traditional practices to simplify supply chain processes and the government engaging technology companies to solve problems in the new normal phase (e.g. contact tracing, contactless thermal screening).”

Just the same way, Education sector, start-ups, and the Healthcare sectors have adopted Artificial Intelligence. 45 % of the increase in the usage of AI has been reported in India, which is the highest among other countries. While looking forward to the rest of the countries that has adopted the usage of AI are showing a result of 35 % rise in the US, 23 % in the UK, and 28 % rise in Japan. Moreover, around 70 % of enterprises are surveyed by PWC India that has adopted AI.

The use of artificial intelligence in India was driven by the industries like travel and hospitality, followed by 86 per cent of telecoms, media and technology companies, 82 per cent of financial services, and 73 per cent of healthcare and pharmaceutical companies adopting it during the year.

AI is deployed, among others, across business functions such as customer support, finance and tax, HR, Information Technology and cyber protection, manufacturing and operations, Research & Development, risk, legal and enforcement, sales and marketing, supply chain and logistics.

The survey also shows that enthusiasm with regard to Artificial Intelligence in cost reduction and revenue maximization has risen dramatically from 72% to 92% in India, and since the pandemic struck them, 45% of organizations have increased the usage of AI.

Besides, 94 per cent of respondents have either introduced AI in their organizations or are preparing to incorporate it.

Sudipta Ghosh, a partner and leader for data and analytics at PwC India, said that Artificial Intelligence is now considered as a crucial enabler for organizations to emerge from the current crisis, prepare for transformation and make radical changes to the operating model for enduring competitive advantage.

Businesses need to begin considering it as a necessity rather than a privilege and integrate it into the organizational fabric to get the best out of artificial intelligence.

As per the survey, Companies, however still find it difficult to adopt AI and fail to comprehend the optimum value of their AI investments. For example, 37% of them find it difficult to recognize the correct usage cases for AI and 28% lack high-quality data for use in AI solutions.