Around 75 per cent of Indian enterprises consider AI initiatives a board-level priority, yet 39 per cent acknowledge that unmet technology prerequisites are constraining value realisation, according to a report released on Thursday, 4 June. The findings, published by Tata Communications, highlight a widening gap between boardroom ambition and on-the-ground infrastructure readiness across Indian businesses.

India's Unique Infrastructure Challenge

India stands out as the only market in the study where two specific prerequisites — high-performance network connectivity and hybrid deployment flexibility — were cited predominantly by respondents as critical to AI success. Around 53 per cent of Indian respondents rated these two infrastructure requirements as equally important to AI deployment itself, pointing, according to the report, to 'a broader, more integrated view of what AI infrastructure requires.'

This dual dependency sets India apart from other surveyed markets and reflects the country's still-evolving enterprise technology landscape, where cloud-first and on-premise systems frequently coexist.

IT Operations Leads AI Deployment

Approximately 78 per cent of Indian enterprises identified IT operations and network management as the top business function for AI deployment — the second-highest figure globally, trailing only the United States. This signals that Indian enterprises are prioritising operational efficiency as the first use case for AI, rather than customer-facing or revenue-generating applications.

Legacy Infrastructure Remains the Core Bottleneck

Despite near-universal boardroom enthusiasm, the report flags a structural problem: nearly two-thirds of organisations continue to rely on legacy infrastructure that is not equipped to support AI at scale. Only 29 per cent of respondents said their infrastructure can scale with evolving business demands, and fewer than half reported fully modernised network connectivity, hybrid deployment flexibility, or data architecture.

Around 28 per cent of leaders cited difficulty integrating AI with legacy systems as a primary roadblock, while 38 per cent said integration concerns contribute to delays in approval and procurement cycles — a drag that slows even well-funded AI programmes.

Risk, Security, and Ethics Compound the Challenge

Roughly 33 per cent of respondents flagged concerns around AI-related risk, security, and responsible or ethical AI as the primary obstacle to value realisation. This places governance concerns on near-equal footing with infrastructure gaps as a barrier to progress.

Nearly 90 per cent of enterprises reported deriving some value from modernisation initiatives, yet more than six in ten said they have not yet reached optimal outcomes — suggesting incremental gains rather than transformative impact.

What Industry Leaders Are Saying

Sumeet Walia, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Tata Communications, said: 'While enterprise ambition is accelerating, readiness remains uneven. The organisations that will lead in the years ahead are those investing in the foundations that connect people, systems, data and intelligence across the enterprise.'

The report underscores a critical inflection point for Indian enterprises: AI has secured a seat at the boardroom table, but without commensurate investment in infrastructure modernisation, the gap between strategy and execution is likely to widen further.