The widespread use of AI will characterize the next stage of India's development: Report

India’s next phase of economic growth will be driven not merely by access to artificial intelligence but by disciplined execution and large-scale institutional adoption, according to a new white paper released jointly by Dutch investment firm Prosus, consulting major Boston Consulting Group, and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

The report projects that India could account for nearly 20 percent of incremental global GDP growth over the next 15 years, provided AI adoption moves beyond pilots and experiments into core institutional systems and workflows.

Titled AI for All: Catalysing Jobs, Growth, and Opportunity, the paper was released at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 and highlights India’s advantages in digital public infrastructure and talent scale, while emphasizing the need to convert these strengths into measurable outcomes.

“India has built strong digital public infrastructure and nurtured one of the world’s largest pools of AI talent. The next phase of our journey is about translating these strengths into institutional capacity and measurable outcomes,” said Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary at MeitY and CEO of the IndiaAI Mission.

He added that as India advances its “Viksit Bharat 2047” vision, responsible and inclusive AI deployment will be central to improving productivity, widening opportunity, and strengthening the country’s global digital leadership.

According to the study, about 16 percent of the global AI talent pool is of Indian origin, giving the country a strategic workforce advantage in AI development and deployment.

Sehraj Singh, Managing Director at Prosus India, said India has the potential to become not only an AI innovator but also a global model for large-scale, human-centric AI adoption across developing economies.

“We believe India has the potential to not only be an AI innovator, but a global model for large-scale, human-centric AI adoption across the Global South,” he said.

The white paper argues that AI must be embedded into governance structures, decision systems, and operational workflows rather than treated as a standalone technology layer. It proposes an execution-focused framework for scaling AI across five priority sectors — agriculture, education, healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services.

In healthcare, AI-enabled diagnostics, triage systems, and predictive analytics could expand clinical capacity and improve system-wide decisions. In agriculture, AI-driven crop planning, precision input use, and automated commodity grading can enhance sustainability, raise farmer incomes, and improve resource efficiency, the report said.

“AI must be treated as a strategic capability explicitly linked to outcomes, economics, and long-term system performance,” said Vipin V, Managing Director and Partner at BCG. He noted that scaling AI requires impact measurement, prioritisation, and redesign of value chains, incentives, and governance models — not just tool adoption.

The report also highlighted emerging job categories tied to AI expansion, including roles in AI oversight, data operations, diagnostics, compliance, advisory services, and digital enablement, positioning AI as a net driver of productivity and employment rather than purely a source of displacement.