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.
This combined definition reflects organisations 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.
The report is available here
