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Indian enterprises have increased AI adoption and industrial products and the manufacturing sector are seeing maximum adoption rates following the COVID-19 pandemic, a report said.

According to a PwC report titled, ‘Towards a smarter tomorrow: Impact of AI in the post-COVID era‘, the industrial products and manufacturing sector has seen the maximum adoption of AI/ML (artificial intelligence/machine learning) over the last two years.

Almost 64% of the organisations surveyed in the industrial products and manufacturing sector say they are currently at an early stage of their AI-based transformation journey reflecting the opportunities for further investments and growth led by AI/ML solutions in this sector, it said.

PwC said it conducted surveys with 220-plus CXOs and decision-makers across the Indian market in 2022 23. This was a follow-up to the survey conducted in 2020.

“While there has been a significant increase in AI adoption with scalable impact in terms of returns, trends indicate that the travel and hospitality industry has reached a degree of saturation,” the report said.

Further, the report said that while the technology, media, telecom, healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors have seen steady progress, they are facing certain challenges around measuring the return on investments, especially in the pre and post-COVID-19 times.

“Compared to the other sectors, the retail and consumer market has seen a decline in AI adoption due to a gap in the identification of potential use cases amidst changing market forces and consumer behaviour,” it added.

On industrial products and manufacturing, the report said that over the past two years, from mid-2020 to 2022-23, this sector has seen a maximum increase of 20% in the adoption/implementation of AI/ML solutions.

It also said that compared with 2020, the travel and hospitality market is now moving towards saturation.

The sector has seen approximately 7% growth in AI adoption, and almost 99% of organisations surveyed today have either implemented AI/ML at scale in at least some areas.