GenAI to Drive 43% of AI Spend in India by 2025: Lenovo Study Despite the increasing spends, AI adoption in India remains in its early stage with 49 per cent of organizations either evaluating or planning to implement AI in the next 12 months.

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is set to transform enterprise workflows, commanding 43 per cent of AI implementation spends in 2025 in India, according to the latest Lenovo-commissioned study by IDC titled 'CIO Playbook 2025 - It's Time for AI-nomics.'

Business leaders and IT decision-makers confirm the accelerating shift toward ROI-driven-AI investments as organizations increase AI spending by 3.3x in Asia Pacific and 2.7x in India.

Despite the increasing spends, AI adoption in India remains in its early stage with 49 per cent of organizations either evaluating or planning to implement AI in the next 12 months. This lags behind the Asia Pacific average (56 per cent) and aligns with the global average (49 per cent) with ROI emerging as the key barrier to quick adoption.

Delivering ROI for AI is a long-term endeavor that requires balancing AI experiments with those that can be scaled. Interestingly, Asia Pacific organizations expect a 3.6x ROI on average from their AI projects, which requires a measured approach to scaling AI and building internal capabilities. India's gradual pace reflects a focus on improving regulatory compliance, enhancing customer experience, and accelerating time to market while overcoming business challenges such as data quality issues, unavailability of AI expertise and IT infrastructure costs.

Overcoming Organizational Readiness Challenges

Evolving business priorities each year reflect a deeper understanding of what it takes to drive AI growth, bringing greater awareness of its risks as well. Ethical issues and biases are the top AI risks this year, yet only 24 per cent globally and 25 per cent in Asia Pacific have fully enforced AI GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) policies. In India, 19 per cent of CIOs report fully implemented enterprise AI GRC policies. This highlights the urgent need for a structured approach for what has emerged as the topmost priority for businesses in Asia Pacific.

"Business priorities are shifting in Asia Pacific," said Sumir Bhatia, President, Asia Pacific Infrastructure Solutions Group, Lenovo, "For 2025, governance, risk, and compliance have jumped 12 spots to become the top priority, highlighting the focus on secure and responsible AI. Employee productivity has also climbed from number 7 to 2, underscoring its growing importance. Lenovo is committed to making AI accessible, ethical, and impactful—helping businesses of all sizes thrive in the AI era."

The report revealed that 65 per cent of organizations in Asia Pacific are opting for on-premise or hybrid solutions to power AI workloads. This preference is driven by the need for secure, low-latency environments, and operational flexibility.

Meanwhile, 19 per cent still rely on public cloud services. India reflects a similar trend, with 63 per cent using hybrid or on-prem, while the remainder depend on public cloud.

"Hybrid architectures offer the best of both worlds—scalability and control," noted Amit Luthra, Managing Director, Lenovo ISG India. " Globally, 63 per cent of organizations prefer on-premise and hybrid infrastructures for AI, with India mirroring this trend. This alignment demonstrates a clear focus on driving innovation while staying secure and compliant for the unique demands of AI. With its end-to-end cutting-edge AI solutions, smarter infrastructure, and strategic partnerships, Lenovo is driving Smarter AI for all."

AI PCs: Early Adoption Signals Productivity Gains

AI-powered PCs are gaining traction in the Asia Pacific region, with 43 per cent of organizations seeing significant productivity gains. While awareness is increasing, local adoption remains slow across markets. In India, 53 per cent of organizations are already in the planning stage for AI-powered PC adoption. As the technology matures and demonstrates ROI, the adoption curve will accelerate, driving more digital workplace solutions.

With organizations scaling their AI efforts, 34 per cent of Asia Pacific CIOs and 29 per cent of Indian CIOs are actively leveraging professional AI services to navigate complexities in data management, talent shortages, and cost efficiency. Interestingly, an additional 54 per cent of CIOs in India are exploring or planning to engage these services in the near future. These collaborations help bridge internal capability gaps, enabling organizations to focus on upskilling their teams and building long-term resilience.

"AI adoption is not just about the short-term gains. Organizations need to invest in the efficiency of the design, deployment and integration of AI solutions to their operations that enable tracking of the impact. Professional AI services play a key role here and help organizations successfully adopt AI through outcome-led approach," said Fan Ho, Executive Director and General Manager, Solutions and Services Group, Lenovo Asia Pacific.

It may be noted that top Indian IT services companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, and Wipro are also increasing their investments in GenAI.

"Our pipeline of AI, GenAI engagement is higher than in the last few quarters, and we saw a significant increase in deal wins across AI for IT and AI for business… The propensity to roll out more GenAI use cases to production is increasing, and the organizational barriers witnessed earlier were diminishing. There is evident maturity in the request for GenAI pilots with a sharper focus on business outcomes rather than mere experimentation," K. Krithivasan, CEO and MD, TCS, said in a post-earnings call.