India’s artificial intelligence journey is unfolding in clearly defined stages, with most enterprises still in the early phases of adoption, according
to industry leaders from Salesforce and Gartner. Speaking during a recent Deep Dive discussion at ET NOW, Salesforce Chief Digital Evangelist Vala Afshar and Gartner Senior Director Analyst Naveen Vishra outlined how Indian companies are approaching AI, the infrastructure investments backing this shift and why inaction could prove costlier than experimentation. Vishra explained that AI adoption among Indian enterprises follows a three-stage maturity pathway. The first phase focuses on pilots and experimentation, where organisations test small use cases and proof-of-concepts. “That’s where the majority of Indian enterprises are today,” he said, noting that companies are still discovering where AI can deliver tangible value. The second phase, which many firms are now moving towards, is stabilisation. This involves preparing AI-ready data, putting governance frameworks in place, addressing regulatory requirements and strengthening risk management systems. According to Vishra, early adopters are spending significant time and capital managing these complexities and this phase alone could dominate enterprise efforts over the next year or more. The third stage, enterprise-wide AI adoption, involves embedding AI directly into products and business processes across the organisation. Vishra pointed out that only a handful of Indian enterprises have reached this level so far, indicating that widespread, cross-enterprise AI integration is still some distance away. Addressing concerns from global investors who view India as an 'anti-AI trade' due to slower execution, Vishra rejected the notion outright. He highlighted India’s growing AI infrastructure push, including the government’s AI Mission and heavy investments by domestic data centre players in GPU-as-a-service offerings. These platforms are increasingly being used to train large language models for Indian customers. He also pointed to the rapid expansion of data centre capacity across the country, including large-scale facilities coming up in southern India, as evidence of sustained capital commitment. “More and more such data centres are coming, which illustrates the scale of investment happening within India,” Vishra said. On the debate around AI’s impact on critical thinking, Vishra acknowledged concerns about over-dependence, particularly among students and professionals. However, he argued that enterprises are likely to introduce checks and balances to ensure AI enhances productivity without eroding cognitive skills. In his view, AI combined with human critical thinking can unlock greater individual potential rather than limit it. Salesforce’s Vala Afshar shifted the focus to risk and leadership accountability, stressing that trust should be the guiding principle for AI adoption. He defined trust as a combination of competence reliability and capability and character, including integrity and benevolent intent. “What is your intention for introducing new technology?” Afshar asked, adding that customer and employee success must remain central. Afshar warned that the biggest risk for companies today is staying on the sidelines. “If you’re standing and watching, you’re falling behind,” he said, describing AI’s pace of evolution as faster than anything he has seen in three decades of working in technology. He noted that among the world’s fastest-growing companies, AI is no longer just an IT initiative but a boardroom priority. CEOs are actively involved and leadership teams, including CIOs, CROs and HR heads, are working together to define AI strategy. According to Afshar, this top-down engagement is becoming a defining feature of competitive enterprises in the AI era.
As Indian companies move from experimentation to stabilisation, the message from industry experts is clear: deliberate progress, strong governance and leadership ownership will determine who keeps pace and who gets left behind.
