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Digital Enterprise 2025: Advancing to an AI-First Enterprise

May 29, 2025 127 0 Digital Transformation AI

Digital Enterprise 2025: Advancing to an AI-First Enterprise

Entering CY2025, enterprises face a complex environment characterized by macroeconomic uncertainty and rapid technological evolution. Despite multiple macro stresses, the outlook for CY2025 signals a fundamental transformation in digital strategies, marked by a decisive pivot toward AI-first operations. Nasscom’s study, “Digital Enterprise 2025: Advancing to an AI-First Enterprise,” in partnership with Avasant, assesses these digital spend transitions through a survey of over 500 global enterprises and highlights the strategic imperatives for businesses in this AI-driven future.

Key Highlights

 

Rising VUCA and digital spending in CY2025

  • 49% of the enterprises expect consumer demand to decline in CY2025, 5.5X of those that expected so in CY2024. Given current scenarios, consumer demand may drop more than expected.
  • Enterprises will have to prepare for multiple disruption scenarios and challenging prioritization – ranging from worst-case stretched global slowdown to a somewhat better outcome of restricted slowdown

 

Despite strong downturn expectations, enterprise digital spending is expected to hold, while AI spending rises in CY2025

  • Significant increase in top-end digital spenders and these companies increasing the proportion of digital spend within their tech portfolios
  • Major jump in companies spending 10% or more of digital budget on AI in CY2024

 

The digital to AI-first transformation of enterprises has started, and is expected to strengthen and become real in CY2025

  • Of all digital tech, highest jump in AI allocation between CY2024 and CY2025 (expected spend), while spending in mature tech, such as, cloud, big data and analytics tapers.
  • Focus has shifted to integrated AI solutioning, moving towards adoption of AI agents, as majority respondents redirect spending to be AI-ready – building the right data and cloud foundation, core compute, and AI-readiness of enterprise applications.
  • As more AI PoCs move into production, nature of digital services contracts has started changing. 55% of the deals in CY2024 were AI PoCs or production, with shortened durations of <6 months or 6-24 months, respectively.
  • 3-in-4 companies expect AI spend to increase in CY2025, with higher percent of respondents willing to spend more.

 

AI agents are being actively tested in a move towards greater autonomy and seamless human-AI collaboration

  • 27% companies already report having AI agents in production or at scale, with another 31% at the PoC stage. Many more respondents are planning PoCs in 2025.
  • Companies could increase spend on AI agents 3-4X, even as spend on other forms of classical AI and generative AI also simultaneously increase

 

Robust outsourcing trends in CY2024 expected to stay increase in 2025; companies expect stronger AI talent hiring to happen

 

  • Outsourcing stayed the preferred mode for executing digital services in CY2024,chosen by 78% of the enterprises, new and expansion GCCs becoming a strong trend in 2024.
  • India continued to the preferred outsourcing destination of choice across offshoring, near-shoring, and setting up of global capability centers.
  • While digital talent hiring trends stayed relatively conservative; AI hiring robust despite talent shortage as companies look for specialist AI roles, including Chief AI Officer, AI model trainers, Responsible AI officer/ AI ethics officer, AI reinforcement experts, Digital experience officer, and domain + AI roles.

 

By 2030, AI-first transition will evolve enterprises into flexible, composable, and agile entities, provided persistent challenges with data, culture, and AI performance are addressed

  • Enterprises expect major disruptive shifts in consumption trends by 2030, driving the need to rethink and redesign business, technology, and people capabilities for sustenance and growth.
  • 48% of the companies expect that over 50% of tech spend will be on digital by 2030, the real silver lining riding out short-term curbs on tech spend.
  • However, digital transformation challenges continue to plague AI-led transformation initiatives today, as data discipline, skills, and governance lags.
  • Enterprises and service providers will have to rethink and re-orient their strategies for mutual exploration and execution of an AI-first transformation strategy.

For a detailed read, download this free report.

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