It looks like the enterprise is entering the next phase of AI. The APAC AI Outlook 2025 report by IBM has revealed that Indian enterprises are moving beyond AI usage to increase the impact of their AI investments. Those surveyed from India expect to see long-term benefits from AI investments in their businesses. 26 percent see benefits in innovation, 21 percent expect better revenue generation, 1 percent expect AI to save costs and 12 percent expect increased employee productivity. According to the report, the game changer lies in deploying cost-effective AI solutions.
“In 2025, AI will be a game-changer for Indian enterprises, revolutionizing productivity and enabling unprecedented scalability,” said Sandeep Patel, managing director, IBM India and South Asia.
Patel added that as the company works on the vision of a developed India, the focus will be on responsibly leveraging AI to drive real business value – moving beyond low-risk uses to strategic initiatives that deliver a competitive edge and improved ROI. “Additionally, the growth of small, high-performance AI models will redefine efficiency, delivering task-specific results that rival larger models at a fraction of the cost,” he added.
The report also suggests that companies are evolving their approach to generative AI, meaning they are moving from immediate wins in low-risk areas to deploying AI in core business functions for better ROI. are growing A recent survey for IBM suggested that nearly 60 percent of Asia-Pacific businesses expect to see AI benefits in two to five years, while 11 percent expect returns sooner. Based on the report, this shift seems to suggest a deeper understanding of AI’s long-term potential by companies.
The report states that by 2025, Indian companies will prioritize AI investments in areas such as customer experience, planning and strategy, and IT optimization. However, achieving this requires them to overcome challenges such as data access, limited AI skills, and difficulties in integration and scaling.
Furthermore, the APAC AI Outlook 2025 also highlights key trends and challenges for exploring AI potential, with insights from 17 industry leaders to streamline adoption. Five strategic trends shaping the field’s AI future include prioritizing scalable AI projects that maximize ROI and balancing early wins with long-term strategies; Smaller, specialized open source models tailored to local contexts and languages are emerging; robust tools to streamline the integration of these models; AI agents to redefine workflows by executing tasks autonomously; and a focus on enhancing human capabilities, automating routine tasks, and fostering creativity while prioritizing empathetic, customer-centric designs.