The year 2025 stood as a watershed year for India’s technology landscape, where bold experiments gave way to scaled realities, AI agents taking charge, cyber defenses hardening, GCCs sharpening their edge, and sustainability weaving into every strategy.
Enterprises didn’t just adopt tech; they reshaped it for India’s unique scale, diversity, and ambition, setting the stage for 2026’s accountable acceleration. Global reports like McKinsey’s trends outlook affirm early AI adopters could surge ahead in revenue and productivity, but only those bridging skills gaps and infrastructure hurdles will truly lead.
AI agents reshape enterprises
As 2026 draws closer, India’s AI conversation is quietly but decisively shifting—from experimentation to orchestration.
Narinder Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO of TO THE NEW, captures this inflection point succinctly. AI, he argues, is no longer about isolated models delivering narrow outcomes. Instead, enterprises are entering an era of coordinated, intelligent systems, where multi-agent architectures work together, take decisions, and adapt in real time. This marks a fundamental shift in how organizations think about scale, speed, and autonomy, AI not as a tool, but as a living system embedded into operations.
That systems-level thinking resonates deeply in the Indian context. Rohit Vyas, Director of Solution Engineering at Confluent India, points out that Indian enterprises are no longer satisfied with generic intelligence. They are seeking AI that can adapt to India’s complexity and scale responsibly for a population of 1.4 billion. This has brought agentic AI and sovereign small language models into sharp focus, solutions that respect data boundaries while remaining deeply contextual to local realities.
Context, in fact, is emerging as the new currency of AI value. Ganesh Gopalan, Co-Founder and CEO of Gnani.ai, notes that enterprises now demand AI systems that understand intent, anticipate needs, and act with confidence. In customer operations especially, agentic AI is fast becoming the default operating layer—moving beyond conversation to action, resolution, and outcome ownership.
Yet ambition far outpaces maturity. Varun Goswami, Global Head of Product and AI at Newgen Software, reveals a sobering truth: while three in four executives say they are exploring agentic AI at scale, barely 1% believe their initiatives are truly mature. The gap, he suggests, lies not in intent but in fragmentation—prompting a call for unified platforms that can deliver what he terms decisioning excellence.
The stakes could not be higher. Sunil Pandita, SVP at Newgen, estimates that AI could add $1.7 trillion to India’s economy by 2035, particularly through real-time intelligence in finance and enterprise decision-making. But value at that scale demands discipline.
Parag Bhagwat, Chief Digital Officer at Sanjay Ghodawat Group, offers a timely caution. Too many pilots, he warns, remain trapped without ROI. The next phase of AI leadership, he argues, must focus on automation with purpose, strong governance, and outcomes that can be defended in boardrooms, not just showcased in demos.
Taken together, these perspectives paint a clear picture of India’s AI moment. The future belongs not to those who deploy AI fastest, but to those who can orchestrate intelligence responsibly, govern it wisely, and anchor it firmly to business value. Agentic AI may be the technology shift—but leadership, maturity, and purpose will determine who truly benefits from it.
Cybersecurity’s culture shift: from tools to trust
As AI accelerates threat sophistication, cybersecurity is undergoing a parallel transformation, from a tools-first discipline to a culture-led mandate. Rohit Aradhya, VP at Barracuda Networks, underscores a hard truth: technology alone cannot deliver resilience. In an era shaped by AI-fueled ransomware and looming quantum disruption, he argues, the strongest defence will be a security-aware culture, one rooted in continuous learning, adaptability, and purpose-driven talent.
That cultural shift is already visible in India’s skilling landscape. Vinay Pradhan of Udemy points to a 32% year-on-year surge in cybersecurity training demand, alongside growing interest in AI ethics and governance. Skills, not firewalls alone, are becoming the new perimeter.
Looking ahead, Matthew Foxton of IDEMIA foresees cryptography and cybersecurity emerging as defining pillars of the digital economy, with crypto agility becoming essential as organizations prepare for quantum-resistant standards. At the ecosystem level, Prakash Ravindran, CEO of InstiFI, credits RBI-led cyber-safety initiatives for reinforcing trust in UPI—especially as Bharat Connect expands digital inclusion at scale.
GCCs go agile and strategic
India’s Global Capability Centres are also being reimagined. Monica Pirgal, CEO of Bhartiya Converge, describes 2025 as a clear inflection point—from massive, cost-driven delivery hubs to smaller, innovation-led GCCs focused on precision, agility, and long-term value creation. In this new model, AI-native engineering, trusted data governance, and continuous talent reinvention are no longer optional—they are foundational.
This evolution aligns with the sector’s macro momentum. Gagan Arora of Vertex Group notes India’s IT-BPM revenues touching $254 billion, driven by upskilling in cloud and cybersecurity, and enabling hyper-personalized services for global enterprises.
Clouds, data, and the question of sovereignty
Cloud strategy, too, is entering a more mature phase. Faiz Shakir observes that the conversation has shifted decisively from scale to governance—who controls the data, how it is protected, and where it resides. Sovereign and distributed cloud capabilities are rapidly moving from niche deployments to mainstream requirements.
This shift is already playing out in regulated industries. SAP’s Sovereign Cloud launch reflects growing demand for compliant AI frameworks in sectors like BFSI and government. Complementing this, Pankaj Malik of Invenia-STL Networks calls for secure, scalable, and intelligent digital foundations, where AI-driven networks become the backbone of enterprise resilience.
Surveillance and smart infra get context-aware
Infrastructure intelligence is also becoming more contextual. Naresha B. Wadhwa, Vice Chairman of Videonetics, predicts a future where AI agents actively collate semantically connected information across multiple video systems. In this model, contextual intelligence replaces basic analytics, powered by VSaaS, edge AI, and 5G-IoT convergence.
Parallelly, Aditya Prabhu of Secutech highlights the rise of smart buildings as a $12.5 billion opportunity, where energy optimization, predictive maintenance, and sustainability goals converge to support net-zero ambitions.
Sector spotlights: from insurtech to EVs
Across industries, AI is moving closer to the customer. Sriram Naganathan of HDFC ERGO reflects 2025 as a year of operational maturity, setting the stage for AI-powered, hyper-personalized insurance experiences in 2026.
In mobility, S. Raghav Bharadwaj of Bolt.Earth reports a milestone of one lakh EV chargers—commanding 63% market share—with profitability targeted by FY26–27. Meanwhile, Hardeep Dayal of Bhartiya Urban reframes offices as productivity enablers and culture hubs, while Sriram Kannan of Routematic links AI-driven route optimization to ESG gains through reduced commuter emissions.
Geospatial, space, and climate tech Take Center Stage
The fusion of geospatial intelligence and AI is unlocking new planning paradigms. Agendra Kumar of Esri India explains how GIS combined with GeoAI enables predictive, scenario-driven decision-making—ushering in the era of living digital twins.
Satellite data, adds Amit Kumar of Suhora, is finally reaching operational maturity for agriculture, infrastructure, and national security. On the sustainability front, Vasudha Madhavan of Ostara Advisors points to biofuels, circular lithium, and carbon monitoring as key 2026 levers, while Anirban Ghosh of Mahindra University highlights emerging ESG themes—from biodiversity credits to AI-driven decarbonization.
Education and workforce reinvention
Underpinning all these shifts is a reinvention of education and work. Vinay Pradhan reiterates that AI skilling has become a competitive necessity, with adaptable employees proving nearly four times more innovative. Dr. Sanjay Gupta of World University of Design calls for curricula centered on imagination, agency, and critical intelligence.
Dr. Yajulu Medury of Mahindra University envisions hyper-personalized blended learning under Education 5.0, while CP Gurnani of AIONOS stresses aligning technology investments with trust, business outcomes, and long-term impact. Looking ahead, Harsha Solanki of Infobip predicts AI agents will soon handle up to 95% of interactions via super apps like WhatsApp.
The big picture
Taken together, this tapestry of voices defines India’s 2025 technology narrative: purposeful scaling amid rising complexity. As the country moves toward 2026, AI, cybersecurity, and sustainability are no longer parallel conversations—they are converging into a single agenda for resilient, inclusive growth.
As India steps into 2026, the technology agenda is entering a more demanding phase—one defined not by experimentation, but by accountability. AI, cybersecurity, data, and sustainability are no longer discrete initiatives competing for attention; they are converging into a single operating imperative focused on trust, resilience, and real-world impact.
This shift is forcing enterprises to rethink scale itself. As Sanket Atal, SVP, Engineering and Country Head, OpenText India, observes, “The sovereignty conversation is moving from where data resides to how it is governed, secured, and trusted across its entire lifecycle. In complex hybrid environments, value will be created by organizations that can unify data, apply intelligence responsibly, and protect critical information while continuing to innovate.”
For CIOs, the challenge now is to translate technological momentum into durable advantage. Intelligence without governance amplifies risk, and innovation without resilience struggles to scale. The leaders who pull ahead will be those who embed security, accountability, and trust by design—creating platforms that can evolve autonomously, protect themselves, and adapt to increasing complexity.
India’s opportunity lies at this intersection: where AI infrastructure meets responsible intelligence, and where digital ambition is matched by operational rigor. As enterprises align data, networks, and security into a coherent whole, technology moves from being a growth enabler to becoming a national and organizational capability—one that can deliver inclusive, long-term impact at scale.
