Agentic AI: India's Next Tech Frontier?

According to Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, Agentic AI is a significant advancement in artificial intelligence, enabling AI systems to perceive, reason, plan, and act independently. Financial commentator Raoul Pal believes Agentic AI will revolutionize competition and innovation by independently building entire businesses. Deloitte's report indicates that over 80% of Indian organizations are exploring autonomous agents, showing a strong inclination toward Agentic AI. However, Apurv Agrawal, Co-founder and CEO of SquadStack, emphasizes that building Agentic AI involves re-architecting how businesses think, requiring systems that act autonomously with context, judgement, and accountability. He estimates that starting from scratch could cost INR 50 crore to INR 200 crore over three to five years, with no guaranteed success without bulletproof systems, data loops, and change management.
Narendra Sen, Founder & CEO of RackBank and NeevCloud, stresses the need for Indian businesses to evolve from task automation to intelligent, context-aware decision-making, treating AI as a collaborative partner. Suryanarayanan Ramamurthy, Head of Data Science, Contentstack, reported that infusing Agentic AI into their platform led to higher customer take rates and scalable personalization. Nishant Rathi, Founder and Director, NeoSOFT, noted improved resolution times and internal efficiencies, with autonomous agents reducing average resolution time in customer service by nearly 40%. Beerud Sheth, CEO of Gupshup, stated that companies using their AI agents saw at least 40% productivity improvements, with lead conversion rates doubling or tripling in real estate, e-commerce, and financial services. Ganesh Gopalan, Co-founder and CEO of Gnani.ai, reported up to 80% reduction in customer support costs and improved CSAT scores through AI agent deployments.
Kanakalata Narayanan, Vice President of Engineering, Ascendion, highlighted the significance of evolving AI standards like the Multi-Agent Collaboration Protocol, enabling digital specialists to reason, collaborate, and escalate to humans only when necessary. Moumita Sarker, Partner, Deloitte India, emphasized democratizing AI use across teams and building libraries of reusable agents. Narayanan advised that leadership must treat Agentic AI as a strategic investment, requiring governance, experimentation budgets, and rapid prototyping. Gopalan added that success lies in building robust data infrastructure, fostering a culture of continuous learning, and enabling human-AI synergy. Vara Kumar Namburu, Co-founder of Whatfix, believes AI must simplify workflows and prioritize the user.
Despite the momentum, infrastructure and workforce readiness remain challenges. Sen noted that Agentic AI is compute-intensive, requiring high-frequency inferencing, orchestration, and integrations. Sheth added that legacy systems hinder AI scaling, necessitating an API-first approach. Mahesh Parab from PwC highlighted the need for frameworks that ensure agents behave responsibly, are auditable, and align with business KPIs. Firms are proactively training their workforce, with Sheth mentioning that 35% of Gupshup's coding workflows are AI-augmented. Ramamurthy noted Contentstack's use of real-world pilot projects, internal labs, and AI adoption hackathons. Rathi emphasized systems thinking and human-AI cooperation, advocating for a mindset of experimentation and agility.
Agentic AI's potential to contribute to India's GDP is already evident in pilots across healthcare, agriculture, and education. Gopalan noted how multilingual voice agents are reducing patient no-shows and improving rural care delivery. Sen added that AI triage agents could handle up to 60% of OPD cases. Parab reported that adaptive agents in agriculture have led to 15% higher yields and 20% water savings. Rathi highlighted that voice-powered tutors and agent-based learning systems are helping students in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Parab underscored that Agentic AI could add USD 300 billion to India's GDP by 2030. India's journey into the Agentic AI era is underway, but true readiness depends on holistic progress, with Namburu emphasizing the importance of making AI truly work for people.