India firms lag on AI readiness despite rapid adoption

Kyndryl has published its latest India People Readiness Report on artificial intelligence adoption. The study found that 25% of organisations in India believe their workforce is adequately prepared to use AI successfully.

The findings highlight a gap between faster AI deployment in business operations and slower progress in workforce preparation, governance and operating models. Among Indian organisations, 56% reported that AI is now deployed broadly or embedded in core business processes, while 81% of leaders were concerned that AI advancement would outpace workforce capabilities, governance frameworks and operating models.

The report is based on a global survey of 1,100 senior business and technology leaders across eight countries, including India. In India, workforce readiness fell 12 percentage points from the previous year.

That decline comes even as many businesses say they are changing how work is organised to accommodate AI. In India, 69% of organisations said they had redesigned roles within or across functions to support AI adoption, while 33% had formal budgets and proactive upskilling strategies in place.

The survey also highlighted a trust issue around more autonomous uses of AI. Kyndryl found that 84% of Indian organisations expect autonomous AI agents to make material decisions within the next 12 months, but only 28% said they fully trust autonomous AI systems operating without human oversight.

Those figures suggest businesses are moving ahead with implementation before establishing broad confidence in how the systems will be governed. The report argues that stronger operating models and clearer oversight will be needed if organisations want employees to accept wider use of AI in daily work.

Lingraju Sawkar, President - Kyndryl APxJ, commented on the India findings.

"India has consistently demonstrated leadership in technology adoption, and enterprises are moving quickly to integrate AI into their operations. While organisations continue to invest in AI technologies and expand use cases, scaling impact will require businesses to rethink how work gets done, redesign roles, build new capabilities and establish governance frameworks that foster trust and responsible adoption," said Sawkar.

India trends

The India results mirror concerns in the wider global dataset, though the local figures show a particularly sharp tension between adoption and preparedness. Globally, only 23% of organisations said their workforces were fully ready for AI, down six percentage points from the previous year, while 79% of respondents said the speed of AI would outpace their organisations' workforce, governance and operating models.

Kyndryl's study identified a small group it called "Pacesetters", representing 9% of global organisations. These companies have redesigned roles around AI, introduced change management so employees understand the new operating model, and built workforce readiness alongside governance frameworks.

According to the global findings, that group is 1.5 times more likely to achieve AI-related revenue growth and 1.6 times more likely to report stronger innovation in products and services. The study presents those organisations as examples of businesses linking AI deployment more closely to labour planning and internal controls.

Skills pressure

The report also examined the practical steps companies are taking to prepare employees for AI-enabled work. Across the global sample, 61% said their organisations had already redesigned roles, while 24% said they were creating new roles focused on AI management.

Skills shortages remain a constraint. More than half of leaders surveyed globally, or 52%, said it had become harder to find employees with the right skills to advance their AI strategy, while a third said they had fully implemented training programmes designed to help employees work effectively with AI tools.

Governance was another weak point. Just 33% of organisations globally said they had clear policies on which decisions AI can and cannot make, and 27% said they were using a registry and monitoring tools for all their AI systems.

Kim Basile, Chief Information Officer, Kyndryl, said the data showed stronger outcomes where companies invested more directly in workforce transition.

"This is a critical moment for global enterprises as they race to adopt AI, redesign workflows and pursue innovation, yet they're finding that their greatest asset - their people - needs more attention. The data shows that the organisations investing in people - whether by rethinking roles and workflows, dedicating resources to upskilling and retraining, or guiding employees through change - are experiencing positive outcomes at a much higher rate," said Basile.

Mark Paulek, Chief Human Resources Officer, Kyndryl, said the pace of change in workplace structures would determine whether businesses can keep up with AI adoption.

"AI's ability to reshape work is challenging organisations to reshape their workforce more rapidly than ever before. The leaders pulling ahead are aligning skills, roles and decision-making with how work is actually changing. When people understand their role in that system, trust and performance scale together," said Paulek.