Three in four global leaders will prioritise AI investment despite economic uncertainty, finds KPMG International’s Global AI Pulse Q1 2026 Report
As artificial intelligence moves rapidly from experimentation to enterprise-wide deployment, the challenge for organisations is no longer whether to invest in AI, but how to translate growing investment into sustained business value. KPMG International’s Global AI Pulse Q1 2026 report highlights a widening gap between AI ambition and realised outcomes and what differentiates the organisations beginning to pull ahead.
The inaugural Global AI Pulse draws on insights from 2,110 senior executives across 20 countries, including India, spanning technology, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, professional services and the public sector. While most organisations are investing heavily in AI, only a small group (11 per cent) is consistently realising value.
Their advantage lies not in running more pilots, but in operating AI as a coordinated, enterprise-wide system, embedding it into workflows, governance, decision-making and workforce capability.
Definitions used in this survey :
For the purposes of the Global AI Pulse Q1 2026:
AI maturity refers to the phase an organisation reports being in along its AI journey, from early research to established ROI
Agentic AI engagement assesses the degree to which organisations are implementing or scaling AI agents and multi-agent systems.
AI leaders are defined as organisations in the top two maturity stages and the top three categories of agent deployment.
This combined definition reflects organizations that are both AI-mature and actively advancing agentic AI leadership.
Purushothman KG, Partner and Head of Artificial Intelligence, KPMG in India, said “In India, the AI conversation has decisively moved beyond experimentation. Enterprises are investing with confidence, but execution is now the real differentiator. Our Global AI Pulse Q1 2026 survey shows that value is created by organisations that redesign how work gets done embedding AI and agentic systems into workflows, governance and decision-making. For India’s digital, platform-led economy, aligning technology, trust and workforce capability as a single operating system will be critical to translating AI momentum into sustained performance and growth.”
For India’s rapidly digitising, platform‑driven economy, the findings are highly relevant. Many organisations have already moved beyond experimentation, deploying AI across customer experience, operations, risk and core functions. However, the report makes clear that speed of adoption alone is not enough.
As AI — and increasingly agentic AI — becomes embedded across workflows, the shift is from deploying tools to redesigning operating models that enable coordination, accountability and scale. In India, success will depend on aligning technology, governance and people, while addressing trust, privacy and regulatory complexity.
Encouragingly, the ASPAC region is showing early momentum in AI‑led coordination. For Indian enterprises, this creates a clear leapfrog opportunity, provided data foundations, governance and workforce readiness keep pace.
Key findings from the report :
AI investment is strong, but value is uneven
Leaders plan to invest an average of US$186 million in AI over the next 12 months; 74 per cent will look to maintain AI as a top priority even during a recession
64 per cent report meaningful AI business value, but many struggle with value measurement, governance agility, data privacy, cybersecurity and workforce resistance
Only 11 per cent are pulling ahead by scaling AI agents across functions and coordinating them across workflows
82 per cent of AI leaders report clear business value from AI, compared to 62 per cent non -leaders— reflecting a growing performance gap driven by enterprise-wide transformation
AI agents are most commonly deployed in:
Technology and IT (66 per cent) for accelerating code development
Operations (55 per cent) for orchestrating workflows
Marketing and sales (43 per cent) for personalised customer engagement
People, trust and behaviour drive AI value
Organisations that are confident in their talent pipeline are nearly four times as likely to report meaningful business outcomes (77 per cent vs 20 per cent), reinforcing the relationship between workforce readiness and AI-driven performance.
As AI agents scale, leaders increasingly value critical thinking, adaptability and creative problem-solving, reinforcing the continuing importance of human capabilities
AI risk confidence grows with maturity
75 per cent of AI leaders express concern about AI-related risk and security
At scale, concerns shift from experimentation risks to data quality, integration, governance and competition from AI-native entrants
Expectations for AI capability are accelerating with 80 per cent of organizations expecting human-level AI within the next five years,
Conclusion
The defining challenge is no longer AI adoption, but AI execution at scale
Value is concentrating among organisations that treat AI as a coordinated, enterprise-wide transformation
For Indian organisations, this is a critical inflection point as AI systems become more autonomous and embedded
Those that align operating models, trust, governance and workforce capability will be best positioned to convert AI investment into measurable performance, resilience and long-term growth
