India's AI Momentum Index rose to 63 in Q3 2026, up from 61.0 at the start of the year, according to Dun & Bradstreet's quarterly survey of around 300 business leaders across 17 sectors. The index, built on eight equally weighted dimensions including investment, ROI, workforce readiness and risk mitigation, places India among the leading AI adoption markets globally. It ranks ahead of Indonesia, Australia and Japan, though behind Taiwan and South Korea, with the global average standing at 61.7.
Every business surveyed reported at least one AI-related project underway, with none saying they had no AI activity at all. Of these projects, 44% remain in the planning or piloting stage, 30% are scaling pilots into production, 19% have embedded AI across multiple core processes, and 7% have moved to agentic AI workflows that drive complex decisions with minimal human intervention. As reported by Dun & Bradstreet, this represents a universal adoption trend across Indian businesses.
India's AI investment score stood at 84 in Q3, the highest of the eight tracked metrics and comfortably above the neutral 50 mark. No respondent expects AI spending to decline over the next 12 months, with 56% expecting a moderate increase and 13% a significant one, while 31% expect spending to stay flat. According to the survey, 69% of businesses expect stable or increased AI spending in the coming year, demonstrating strong commitment to AI initiatives across the Indian business landscape.
Technology and data infrastructure are outpacing people development in India's AI adoption journey. Enterprise data readiness (63) and AI risk mitigation (62) both scored above the global average, while technology stack readiness climbed to 65. However, workforce readiness slipped to 58, the only dimension among India's scores to fall quarter-on-quarter, with just a third of firms describing their workforce as strongly or very strongly AI-ready. Confidence in managing AI risks such as bias, privacy and compliance has strengthened, with 89% of respondents reporting moderate to high confidence, though only 10% describe it as high.
