1.
The Challenges and Opportunities
of AI for the Indian Economy
With Daniel Faggella,
CEO, Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research

2.
Emerj AI Research
● Emerj is a market research firm focused the implications of AI for business
and government leaders
● Organizations planning very expensive technology initiatives use us to
support critical decisions
● We work with clients as large as the World Bank, and startups who’ve only
raised $10MM
● We present our research for the most reputable institutions in the world:

3.
Emerj in India

4.
Emerj in India

5.
Emerj in India Full Report
https://emerj.com/ai-market-research/artificial-intelligence-in-india/

6.
Presentation Outline
● The State of AI in Business
● The Challenges of AI Adoption
● The Strengths of India’s AI Ecosystem
● The Weaknesses of India’s AI Ecosystem
● AI as a Force to Drive the Indian Economy
(NOTE: At the end of this presentation, I’ve provided a “Resource”
section to provide deeper resources to everything we cover today)

7.
State of AI in Business
● For every 100 “AI companies”, only 10 have any
meaningful traction. Only ⅓ of them even have
credible AI talent
● “Toy applications” are common, and detrimental
to everyone (asking “where can I apply AI?”
instead of asking “how can I drive value?”)

8.
Challenges of AI Adoption
● No ML talent in place at most companies
● More importantly, no management structures in
place to:
○ (a) deal with uncertainty of AI applications
○ (b) Deal with the lengthy R/D process of AI
○ (c) getting buy-in from the C-suite
● Many older firms who don’t adjust will go out of
business

9.
AI in India - Strengths

10.
AI in India - Weaknesses

11.
They could be eaten away by
companies that automate
their work (basic IT services,
customer service work,
human resources work,
payroll, etc…).
3 Scenarios of AI Econ. Impact
They could take their deep
expertise in different
business processes, and be
the first to automate or
augment them with artificial
intelligence.
This would involve taking
their existing expertise in
BPO and IT services and
finding new and better ways
to solve those business
problems with AI and ML
They could stay at the
bottom of the value chain,
relegated to tagging images,
combing through data for
edge cases, training
algorithms, etc (“The nation
of mechanical turks”).
This could pull out of a
“copycatting” mentality (i.e.
being a cheaper version of
some Western business
model), and become the
kind of firms that the rest of
the world references as
“leading” and “premier,” not
merely “less expensive.”
1
2
3

12.
The Opportunity for India
Nikhil Malhotra,
Creator/Head, Maker’s Lab
– TechMahindra
● India has an opportunity to capitalize on
it’s data-rich sectors (particularly BPO
and IT services)
● India has an opportunity to climb up the
value chain, offer more value and
capture more profit
● “Fall in love with the problem, not with
the solution” - Nikhil Malhotra

13.
That’s All, Folks
The end.
I’ve included a list of some of the resources from this
presentation on my final “References” slide.
Feel free to send along an email with questions, or for a
copy of the slides:
dan@emerj.com
Twitter - @danfaggella
emerj.com

14.
Resource List
Top AI Business Articles:
● AI Adoption: https://emerj.com/ai-executive-guides/enterprise-adoption-of-artificial-intelligence/
● Apply AI in Business:
https://emerj.com/ai-executive-guides/how-to-apply-machine-learning-to-business-problems/
Top AI in India Resources from Emerj.com:
● AI in India: https://emerj.com/ai-market-research/artificial-intelligence-in-india/
● Healthcare: https://emerj.com/ai-sector-overviews/ai-in-the-indian-healthcare-sector-current-applications/
● Finance:
https://emerj.com/ai-sector-overviews/ai-in-the-indian-financial-sector-current-traction-opportunities-and
-challenges/
● Retail: https://emerj.com/ai-podcast-interviews/ai-retail-ecommerce-india-challenges-opportunities/
● Agriculture:
https://emerj.com/ai-sector-overviews/artificial-intelligence-in-indian-agriculture-an-industry-and-startup-
overview/