India has emerged as the world’s most marketing-led AI transformation, with chief marketing officers projecting the highest AI-driven growth of any region, directly controlling AI investments and prioritising high-impact applications such as agentic commerce and personalization, a new BCG survey shows.
BCG released its annual global survey of 300 CMOs, in the report How CMOs are Moving Agentic Marketing from Illusion to Reality. While 96% of CMOs worldwide say AI is driving end-to-end transformation of their function, only about a third have scaled AI agents, and just 8% run campaigns with multiple autonomous AI agents. Marketing AI investments exceeded $15 million this year for 43% of companies, up from 28% last year.
Over half (53%) of Indian CMOs project 5–9% incremental topline growth from AI, above the global average of 43%. CEO expectations have risen for 43% of Indian marketing leaders, and 27% say accelerating AI and digital transformation is their CEO’s top priority — higher than in North America and nearly double the EMESA average.
Reflecting this push, 57% of Indian CMOs fund AI directly from marketing budgets, compared to 47% globally, positioning India among the most marketing-led AI markets.
“Indian CMOs are projecting the highest AI-driven growth, owning the investment agenda, and betting on agentic commerce and personalisation,” said Parul Bajaj, BCG India Leader for marketing, sales and pricing. “What is distinctive is the combination of three things: CEO conviction at the top, marketing taking on real strategic ownership of the AI agenda, and a talent base being built systematically from within.”
India leads in agentic commerce, with 73% of CMOs ranking it a top three priority (vs 63% globally). On personalisation, 52% expect major gen AI impact, the highest regionally. Additionally, 88% believe gen AI will enable near real-time sensing and action.
On talent, Indian CMOs show greater confidence, with only 13% viewing gen AI skills as a severe risk (vs 22% globally). More are deploying upskilling (42% vs 34%) and hiring AI-native talent (43% vs 35%).
Essential Business Intelligence,
Continuous LIVE TV,
Sharp Market Insights,
Practical Personal Finance Advice and
Latest Stories — On NDTV Profit.
