Certainly, Indian IT professionals are ahead of their global peers, when it comes to AI adoption in 2021. An IBM commissioned global study has well captured this AI adoption trend.
Almost one-third of IT professionals surveyed globally say their business is now using artificial intelligence (AI). With 43 percent reporting that their company has accelerated their rollout of AI due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Compared to 43% of global peers, over half (53%) of Indian IT professionals say their company has accelerated its AI rollout due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, they say that pandemic has increased their focus on security and threats (43%).
Though they are ahead of their global peers, they most likely to see limited expertise or knowledge (52%). And half of them consider increasing data complexity and data silos (50%) as barriers to AI adoption.
Indian IT professionals say that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased their focus on security and threats (43%).
Despite those barriers, the study found that a majority (95%) of IT professionals in India believe AI is critical or very important to their business. They trust AI and consider its output fair, safe and reliable.
They are most likely to report automating processes to derive higher value work (54%). A strong ecosystem of third-party partners (52%), and commitment to ethics (51%) as key factors their company considers when evaluating AI providers.
Improved efficiency is the key driving factor for AI adoption among companies. The surveyed Indian IT professionals say driving great efficiencies in processes and tasks is a reason why their company is using or considering using automation software or tools (62%).
Over half (54%) of the IT professionals in India cite that needing a better way to interact with customers influenced their decision to use automation software or tools as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Over 3 in 4 (78%) Indian IT professionals think it is very important to their company to build and run their AI projects wherever the data resides.
“Clients are embracing digital technologies as a means for driving meaningful and substantive change within their business. They are looking at speed, efficiency and innovation to stay ahead of the competition,” said Viswanath Ramaswamy, VP – Technology, IBM Technology Sales – India/South Asia.
“Trusted AI, the rise of virtual agents using NLP, automation and anywhere Hybrid are the top areas that have emerged as key business enablers in the last year owing to the acceleration of technology adoption. AI has moved from consideration to wider mainstream adoption with business benefits as the key agenda for every leader,” Ramaswamy.
The global study data is based on AI deployment across 5,501 businesses in China (500), France (500), Germany (500), India (500), Italy (500), Latin America (1,000 across Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru), Singapore (500), Spain (500), the United Kingdom (500), and United States (501).
The IT professions were polled online through Morning Consult’s proprietary network of online providers in April 2021.