How Are Indian Professionals Using AI? Adobe Study Delivers Compelling Insights
AI is shifting from being cool to becoming table stakes in workplaces across the globe. For many professionals scrambling to keep up, the question has shifted from whether AI is important to how AI is currently being leveraged, where creators are seeing the most value and which skillsets will be table stakes for remaining competitive in their field.
While new tools are being developed at breakneck speed, many workers and companies are eager for actionable intelligence on how some of the most forward-thinking markets are adopting AI. Then there's India, a market that's developing at a breakneck pace and merits close inspection.
From content generation to design, coding to decision-making, Indian professionals are finding practical applications for AI that go beyond simple testing. According to Adobe's AI adoption report, Indian users demonstrate notably high levels of trust, engagement, and confidence when working with AI technologies, offering a glimpse into how future workplace adoption may evolve.
Let's take a look at the study's most significant findings on Indian AI applications, popular tool choices, the indispensable nature of trust in adopting new technologies, and the future trajectory of work.
AI Is Becoming Part of Everyday Creative Workflows in India
Generative AI is finding its place as a usable workplace tool and not something only played around with when employees are bored at work. Creative professionals, marketers, designers, and other tech-focused roles are now leveraging AI tools to optimise workflows, reduce time-to-production, and generate ideas. The study reveals that Indian creatives have already moved past trying AI tools just to see what they can do.
Adobe’s study further reveals that AI is being used by Indian professionals for much more than one single task. Respondents say they are using generative AI for content creation, research, ideation, design inspiration, summarisation, and to automate tasks.
Generative AI tools are being leaned on to help work quicker and more efficiently while keeping quality and consistency in check. No matter the industry or job title, Indian creatives are finding uses for AI tools when creating images from scratch.
Image generation is one area where this shift is especially visible. Adobe Firefly’s text-to-image tool helps turn words into unique visual ideas so designers, marketers and content creators can brainstorm concepts quickly, without staring at a blank screen. From creating mock-ups to piecing together concepts for a marketing campaign or social media post to simply finding creative inspiration, AI-generated images are being used for more than one use case in India.
What this means: The rise of embedded AI use signifies a pivotal moment where creation isn't confined to a single human-driven phase of initial thought and then a handover to AI for output. Instead, forward thinkers are beginning to integrate generative AI as its own layer within their production processes.
Indian Professionals Are Leading AI Adoption
One significant takeaway from the study is that professionals in each market self-identify differently when describing their adoption of emerging technology. 63% of Indian respondents classify themselves as “Innovators”, whereas Australians (42%) and South Koreans (43%) are more likely to consider themselves “Early Adopters”.
This is an important distinction because innovators help drive how new technology is applied in the workplace. Early adopters are willing to test drive new tools and applications, but innovators take it a step further by pushing the boundaries of how new tools can be used.
They experiment with workflows and find new ways technology can be applied to their day-to-day work. With artificial intelligence, developers can upskill sooner while also accelerating the technology’s adoption in the workplace.
It’s not necessarily a race to adopt new technology first, but markets that have a stronger presence of innovators can help move the needle. The more people who are hands-on with a new tool or workflow, the quicker information is disseminated, the more comfortable professionals become using it, and the more businesses understand where the technology fits best.
Indian respondents are adopting AI technology earlier than their Australian and Korean counterparts and are helping lead the charge from testing to useful applications in the workplace.
What this means: India leads the world at adopting these new tools in real-world workplace scenarios, indicating that they are setting precedents for best practices. By rapidly prototyping new scenarios for these tools, creators are shortening the cycle time between creating a new tool and seeing it actually deployed.
Indian Workers Are Experimenting with More AI Tools
Perhaps the most telling sign of AI maturity isn’t whether or not respondents are using AI but rather how many types of tools they are willing to experiment with. The study found that Indian respondents use an average of 4.4 AI tools compared to just 2.4 Australian respondents and 2.2 Korean respondents in the last 12 months. This wider range of tool usage implies Indian users are sampling a variety of platforms and use cases instead of settling on one solution.
Platforms like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Meta AI, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity AI are among the most used. Whether it’s for generating written content, researching a topic, boosting productivity, or answering questions, each AI tool has its unique strengths. Using a few different tools allows professionals to not only get a better sense of which tool works best for certain tasks but also build workflows that leverage the strengths of each individual tool.
As AI use increases, this type of experimentation can become a significant advantage. The more platforms you use, the more you can compare results, identify flaws and perfect your workflow. Instead of becoming an expert in one AI tool, learning how generative AI can benefit different parts of your work will help you build capabilities with practical experience.
What this means: This widespread exploration of different tools means professionals are growing more tool-agnostic, moving away from rigid platform reliance. Less platform lock-in allows for greater fluidity if you will, so workers can more easily jump to different tools as advancements are made in AI.
Trust in AI is Driving Deeper Workplace Integration
Putting AI into action on its own doesn't ensure it will truly benefit the modern workplace. For AI tools to be truly integrated into day-to-day workflows, users will have to trust the technology enough to rely on it for important tasks and decisions. Indian respondents were more likely to say they trust AI systems to produce accurate, reliable results.
79% of respondents in India say they trust AI tools, compared to 52% in Australia and 48% in South Korea. Trust in AI was also linked to other factors beyond output quality. Indian respondents were more likely to report feeling that AI systems responsibly handle information, protect user data, and produce unbiased results.
It’s this viewpoint that could dictate if professionals consider AI a handy assistant for sporadic tasks or a technology for more critical, strategic responsibilities. Study results indicate that Indian professionals are growing more comfortable with letting AI tools influence their decision-making.
In addition to creating content and improving productivity, Indian respondents expressed trust in using AI-generated recommendations for judgment-based tasks and decisions. Professionals can start seeing AI as more than just a new fad and more like a valuable asset once they trust its results and the platforms producing them.
What this means: Growing trust is speeding up our transition from AI-as-assistant to AI-as-delegate, which means outputs will not simply be reviewed but acted upon. This structural shift in workplace behaviour will result in shorter, more AI-dependent decision cycles at the tactical and operational level.
AI Literacy and Skill-Building Are Accelerating Across India
Usage, however, is only half the story of AI adoption in India. In addition to active use of AI systems, Indian respondents are more likely to engage in learning and capability-building activities around AI than their global peers. Nearly 94% of Indian respondents report that they are taking steps to improve how they use AI tools currently.
This points to a user base that is focused on building sustained fluency with these tools, rather than just scratching the surface. Advanced use cases such as prompt engineering also indicate that Indian users are going beyond mere adoption. They are learning how to refine inputs for better quality outputs, and how to align AI tools to their job functions.
Acceleration is also being driven by emergent online communities and informal learning. Respondents are leveraging resources like tutorial videos, peer networks and communities online, and “learning by doing” to upskill themselves on generative AI. By understanding how different tools behave, how to improve prompts, and how to best use outputs, these practitioners are starting to incorporate GenAI into their workflows.
What this means: Prioritising the ability to learn fosters a beneficial cycle of skill development. The better you become at using AI, the more you'll use it. The more you use it, the more experimentation you'll do. The more experimentation you do, the more things you learn.
What Sets India's AI Adoption Apart?
When we look at these behaviours together, they tell a unique story about AI in India. When Indian professionals dive into experimenting with AI, their trust in what it produces and their drive to learn new skills all feed into each other. And when they believe in its output, they want to learn how to use it better. In Australia and South Korea, we see a slightly different pattern of more cautious behaviour with upskilling leading the way and technologies being put through rigorous validation processes before being adopted.
Taken together, these three activities are indicative of AI maturity. Indian professionals are weaving AI into their day-to-day activities rather than using it as a separate solution. Experimentation, trust in AI, and learning how to use AI better point to AI adoption in India being past the ‘testing phase’ and into creating tangible value.
What this means: The snowballing effect of learning at the organisational level, from peers and for individual skills, is driving system-wide change at a much faster rate than would be indicated by individual adoption rates alone.
How AI Adoption Is Reshaping Work and Capability
Altogether, these insights suggest a real inflection point has arrived in the rollout of artificial intelligence into the workplace. For businesses, the main implication is that AI is now an established presence, likely influencing most creative, technical, and strategic job functions. If your people are already highly experimenting, self-learning, and trusting of AI, you’re likely to see this shift continue at an even quicker pace, with dramatic effects on how your teams work, collaborate, and produce results.
The big takeaway for individuals is that there is a large opportunity at hand for employees who are able to understand and navigate AI in their roles. As organisations continue to adopt AI into their decision-making and production workflows, individuals who know how to operate confidently, critically, and creatively with AI will separate themselves from other talent.
Put simply, AI literacy is going to be table stakes for many employees looking to thrive in the future of work. This also means there is a large opportunity for innovation. Regions and markets that are leading in experimentation and skill-building will be well-positioned to invent new products, services, and workflows that incorporate AI.
The more AI is adopted into the workflow, the easier it will become for organisations to go from concept to operation at speed.
Disclaimer: This article is published in association with Adobe and not created by TNM Editorial.