India’s AI Adoption Accelerates: Nearly Half of Enterprises Now Use Multiple AI Solutions

A new EY–CII report reveals that Indian enterprises are rapidly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) to improve business efficiency. According to the report, 47 percent of surveyed companies already have more than one AI use case running internally, while another 23 percent are currently in the pilot stage. Although India initially lagged behind Silicon Valley in AI adoption, businesses are now aggressively integrating the technology into their operations.

AI Adoption Scaling Up in India

EY India, in collaboration with CII, released the third edition of its AI report titled “The AIdea of India: Outlook 2026.” The survey covered 200 organisations across 20 sectors, including government departments, PSUs, startups, enterprises, and Indian divisions of multinational companies. The respondents included CXOs and senior leadership.

Key findings from the report include:

47% of enterprises have multiple AI use cases already operational.

23% are currently testing AI tools in the pilot stage.

76% of business leaders believe GenAI will have a significant business impact.

63% say they are ready to leverage AI effectively.

A notable behavioural trend highlighted in the report is that Indian enterprises prioritise speed of deployment more than any other factor when deciding whether to build or buy AI solutions. This gives an advantage to tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, which are actively offering India-focused AI services.

Departments Leading AI Growth

AI adoption is expected to increase significantly in several critical functions:

Operations – 63%

Customer Service – 54%

Marketing – 33%

However, despite leadership confidence, AI spending remains low. Over 95% of the surveyed companies allocate less than 20% of their IT budget to AI, with only 4 percent investing beyond that threshold. EY suggests this could be due to the difficulty of measuring traditional ROI for transformational technologies like AI.

Enterprise–Startup Collaboration Rising

Another notable trend is the growing collaboration between enterprises and startups. Nearly 60 percent of organisations are co-innovating with startups to develop AI-driven solutions. This shift reflects the need for agility and experimentation, making startups essential partners in the GenAI era.