India Excels In Cloud, AI, ML; 85% Businesses Use Cloud Providers For Analytics: Experian

India has demonstrated resilience in the face of a challenging global landscape, which is reflected in the findings of a survey of business leaders, of which 77% maintain a positive outlook for the coming year. The study was conducted by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by information services company Experian.

The study also explored the impact of artificial intelligence on analytics, risk assessment and customer experience, and found that India demonstrates impressive AI and machine-learning adoption rates, reaching 49% in customer service and 40% in identity verification.

Key Insights

Below are some key findings from the survey:

With 85% of Indian businesses using external cloud providers for analytics, its adoption outpaces countries like Germany (66%), New Zealand (70%) and Spain (58%), improving its position in cloud, AI and ML utilisation.

• 74% of Indian financial services and telecom companies surveyed are using cloud for credit risk decisions.

• 60% of Indian businesses see open banking as a gateway to new customer-consented data in open finance.

• 61% of business leaders have established a comprehensive AI risk management programme.

• 65% believe that AI gives them a competitive advantage.

• 80% of business leaders surveyed prioritised integration of advanced analytics with AI capabilities.

Role Of AI In Mitigating Top Risks

The study explored the transformative potential of AI, risk priorities and AI’s role in improving resilience. Data privacy (59%) and cybersecurity (53%) emerged as the top risks for 2024, followed by environmental, social and governance risk (47%), and credit risk (41%).

Effectively mitigating these risks depends on improving the predictiveness of models and unlocking value from a variety of data sources. In this regard, AI—particularly ML—stood out as a tool with immense potential, the study found.

Data Integration, Cloud Investments Drive AI Success

Despite an increase in new data sources, the biggest data-related challenge (for 48% of respondents) was effectively sharing data at a large scale while ensuring trust and security. As a result, 86% of business leaders are prioritising investments in new data sources to better understand risk and affordability.

The biggest analytics-related challenge for 55% of respondents was the ability to connect different data assets in a data warehouse that can adequately support AI/ML use cases. To address this, 86% are prioritising investments in cloud technology to improve data integration, with 63% choosing externally hosted cloud services to avoid data silos and aggregate data sources.

Unlocking AI's Potential

Many organisations are actively exploring AI use cases, including underwriting with ML-based models, early identification of vulnerable customers, improved fraud prevention and faster customer service. More than half (65%) of those already using AI found that productivity gains have offset the initial cost, indicating positive return on investment from AI adoption.

"AI/ML has increasingly emerged as a pivotal catalyst in combating new fraud challenges, automating credit risk processes and leveraging alternative data. AI is rapidly transitioning from a choice to a necessity, driving improved business performance and fostering inclusive financial growth," said Saikrishnan Srinivasan, managing director, Experian.