71% of Indian firms seeing returns from GenAI investments, outpacing global average: Snowflake report

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• 71% of Indian firms see positive ROI from GenAI initiatives
• India ranks among top three global markets for GenAI adoption
• Indian firms to allocate 28% of tech budgets to GenAI

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Indian enterprises are emerging as among the world’s fastest adopters of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), with a majority already seeing measurable returns from their investments, according to new research by Snowflake.

The report, “The ROI of Gen AI and Agents,” based on a survey of 2,050 business and technology leaders across 10 countries, found that 71 percent of Indian organisations report positive return on investment from generative AI initiatives, compared with the global average of 61 percent.

India ranks among the top three markets globally for GenAI adoption, alongside the United States and Germany, the study found. Around 42 percent of Indian organisations are already deploying generative AI across multiple use cases, reflecting a shift from experimentation to scaled deployment.

Indian enterprises are also applying generative AI more widely across core technology and business functions than their global peers. Adoption in IT operations stands at 76 percent in India compared with 61 percent globally, while data analytics adoption is 75 percent versus 57 percent globally.

Other areas where Indian companies report higher adoption include cybersecurity (69 percent vs 52 percent globally), software development (65 percent vs 48 percent), customer service (58 percent vs 48 percent), and sales (41 percent vs 31 percent).

“Indian organisations are moving quickly from early experimentation to embedding generative AI into core business operations,” said Vijayant Rai, Managing Director - India, Snowflake.

“What stands out is the strong focus on translating AI adoption into measurable outcomes. As companies continue to invest in modern data platforms and AI capabilities, India is well-positioned to lead the next phase of enterprise AI innovation,” he added.

The study also found that Indian enterprises are using AI extensively in software engineering and IT operations. About 77 percent of organisations are using AI to generate code, compared with 64 percent globally, while 76 percent use AI for code reviews and debugging.

Enterprises in India also reported strong business impact from these initiatives, with 94 percent citing improved operational efficiency, 92 percent reporting increased innovation, and 86 percent seeing improved financial performance.

Looking ahead, Indian organisations are expected to ramp up investments in generative AI. The report found that companies in India plan to allocate around 28 percent of their technology budgets to generative AI over the next 12 months, higher than the global average of 22 percent.

Adoption of agentic AI systems is also gaining momentum, with 66 percent of Indian organisations already using or planning to implement such systems within a year, the report said.