Digital Enterprise 2025: Advancing to an AI-First Enterprise

Entering CY2025, enterprises face a complex environment characterized by macroeconomic uncertainty and rapid technological evolution. Yet, 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 and highlights the strategic imperatives for businesses in this AI-driven future.

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Key Findings

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.
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

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.
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.

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.

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.

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Digital Enterprise 2025: Advancing to an AI-First Enterprise

Key Findings

Rising VUCA, but enterprise digital spending is expected to hold, while AI spending rises in CY2025

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

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

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

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