Unlocking the potential of generative AI to power India’s future

In the transformational era of artificial intelligence (AI), India stands at the precipice of an economic transformation fueled by generative AI, which provides a wealth of opportunities for Indian businesses to stand out. EY estimates that India has the potential to add up to $438 billion to its GDP through Gen AI adoption by 2029-30, over and above baseline estimates - which would translate to an additional 7.2% of GDP for FY 2029-30. This demonstrates the monumental potential of AI in India and its impact on the country’s economic trajectory.

This opportunity however requires a strong and structured approach on the national scale to be tapped effectively, as the Indian tech landscape continues to adapt to ongoing global changes, and businesses across sectors rush to embrace AI technologies. This upcoming paradigm shift needs to be effectively managed to turn it into a metaphorical rising tide for the Indian economy.

The estimated business impact of Gen AI

We can expect to see Gen AI revolutionizing Indian businesses across sectors and unlocking new avenues for growth and significantly increasing productivity. No industry is likely to be untouched by the GenAI transformation. Whether it is for marketing or retail, finance or insurance, healthcare or education, creativity or entertainment and beyond- AI-driven customer experiences, insights, content, automation, and optimization can benefit businesses across all functions. These would include product development and marketing, customer care and finance, HR and operations.

Generative AI has a stronger potential to augment human capabilities and create experiences that are unthinkable. These experiences can have a wide impact, from personalizing customer experience at scale for consumer companies to imagining creative design options in minutes at low costs to accurately understanding consumer sentiment of a diverse customer base in real time. Insights extracted by AI-driven analytical engines can also assist business leaders in making key decisions on short timelines, driving higher conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

Alongside improving existing businesses, India is also a vibrant startup hub that can benefit from the acceleration that generative AI brings to young enterprises, enabling greater innovation and entrepreneurship. With access to new age AI technologies and growing investor interest, startups can disrupt traditional industries and create new market opportunities with far-reaching impact.

The areas of development for India to focus on in the AI economy

India has a rich base of talent pool, especially conducive to AI because of our society's emphasis on mathematics and computer science. As per marcopolo.org research based on research paper submissions at NeurIPS, one of the most selective AI conferences, India is one among top three countries of origin of the most elite AI researchers. However, a large pool of those researchers leaves to work in other countries. That said, the proportion of researchers staying back has been steadily rising due to improving opportunities and conditions in India. We need to further improve upon it.

There is a pressing need to upskill and reskill the workforce to meet the demands of the AI-powered economy. Investing in education, training programs and research opportunities focused on AI and related technologies is essential for ensuring a skilled workforce capable of competing on the global scale. 
Furthermore, India is still developing its regulatory frameworks concerning data privacy, security, and governance - which will be crucial stabilizers for tech development in the coming years. As the most populous nation in the world with growing digital penetration, it will be essential to safeguard any relevant data assets used by businesses while accelerating their AI innovation infrastructure.

Finally, at present, India’s economic growth is outpacing the growth and modernization of its national infrastructure. Today, GPU chips, which power AI training and inference, are expensive and can be afforded only by large corporations with deep pockets. Access to modern technological infrastructure on a national scale, including GPU chips, cloud computing resources and high-speed internet connectivity will be foundational to India’s AI adoption on a large scale, and thus must be prioritized. In the previous decades, we have seen the Digital India project make leaps in boosting digital penetration in the heartlands of the country and connecting rural populations to the ongoing Indian technological revolution. India’s AI undertaking will be an orbital shift in this journey, with the potential to revolutionize lives and should be a priority project to build the necessary digital infrastructure to implement these future forward plans.

The economic potential of generative AI in India is tremendous but requires them to adopt a proactive strategic approach that empowers the existing businesses and lays the foundation for emerging businesses and entrepreneurs to thrive. By investing in AI research and development through both public and private partnerships, and creating a nurturing environment for entrepreneurship, India can leverage its existing strength in technological services and position itself as a global leader in AI-driven innovation.

Amitabh Misra

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Amitabh Misra is CTO at Sprinklr.