The noise over the media and the proclamations of self styled brand ambassadors of the government and industry would make us believe that we are riding high on the wave of Artificial Intelligence. The semiconductor production, compute et al are all in place or falling in place. India’s large language model is round the corner, is what the government would like us to believe. If we go by all the AI buzz, and not get into India IT history then we would quite likely believe that we are also in the AI’s global race and sooner than later we will have a place in the sun.
The actual tech practitioners in the country know for sure that it is far cry, even if it were to happen. Unfortunately, that is not the real story. Pessimism on that front is real. What is really intriguing is that even at the level of AI adoption we are turning out to be real laggards. We have a huge literate population, tech workforce and an aspirational society. None of the Indian IT behemoths have so far made known as to how AI has made a marked difference to their existence, what they have achieved and what their plans are. Their zero commitment to research & development and innovation the less said the better.
The recent report of Google and Kanter based on the study of AI use in India tells it all. You can decide on the applicability or extrapolation of this data pan India for yourself. For the record, the report is based on a survey in 18 cities and the sample size was 8000 people.
As per the report based on the above mentioned survey, only 31% Indians have so far used Google Gemini, ChatGPT or DeepSeek. Conversely, given some chance of statistical or communication error, more than 60% are either not aware of these tools or have not tried them. The survey agencies also say that a lot of people in India do want to make AI tools part of their life.
It is excitement vs adoption, initial days nonetheless. The Google-Kanter report notes Indians’ innate desire to improve and excel. Large numbers in the survey are seeking to boost productivity with figures of 72%, 77% want to enhance their creativity and 73% want to communicate more effectively in their daily lives. Another fascinating point that has come out of this survey is that 92% of the Gemini users feel more confident in their daily lives. People want to use AI tools not only at work but for personal tasks as well. 74% hoped to save time on everyday tasks, while 84% wanted to be more creative with everyday tasks like helping kids with homework or trying recipes.
TIME FOR TECH AND GOVERNMENT LEADERS TO PONDER OVER AI ADOPTION IN INDIA.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.