India leads globally in AI-driven revenue growth expectations: BCG survey

India has emerged as the leading market globally in terms of expectations for artificial intelligence (AI)-driven revenue growth, with 53% of chief marketing officers (CMOs) projecting incremental gains of 5–9%, significantly higher than the global average of 43%, according to Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) latest Global CMO Survey.

The survey is based on responses from 300 CMOs worldwide and was published in the report, ‘How CMOs are moving agentic marketing from illusion to reality.’

India’s performance reflects a combination of leadership alignment, ownership of AI strategy and workforce development. “There is a genuine shift underway in how marketing functions in India are leading AI transformation,” said Parul Bajaj, India leader, marketing, sales and pricing practice at BCG.


India also leads globally in the adoption of agentic commerce, with 73% of

CMOs ranking it among their top three strategic priorities, compared with a global average of 63%.

Additionally, 57% of Indian CMOs reported that AI investments are owned by the marketing function itself, higher than the global figure of 47%, reflecting the stronger role of marketing in enterprise AI decision-making.

Agentic marketing represents a shift from conventional digital marketing by using autonomous AI systems, or “agents”, to manage campaigns, optimise media spend and interact with consumers in real time.

Unlike traditional approaches built around search engines and keyword targeting, this model is driven by AI-led conversations and recommendations.

Industry research has increasingly pointed to the emergence of answer engine optimisation (AEO), where brands are discovered through AI-generated responses rather than search rankings.

On personalisation, 52% of Indian respondents expect generative AI (GenAI) to have a significant positive impact, the highest across all regions surveyed.

Globally, while 96% of CMOs said AI is driving end-to-end transformation of marketing functions, fewer than one-third have deployed AI agents at scale, and only 8% are running campaigns involving multiple autonomous AI agents. At the same time, 43% of companies reported marketing AI investments exceeding $15 million this year, up from 28% last year.

“90% of the CMOs in our survey agreed that GenAI is already reshaping how consumers discover and evaluate brands. But most marketing organisations are not yet built to compete in that environment,” said Mark Abraham, global leader, marketing, sales and pricing practice, at BCG. He added that organisations must move beyond isolated AI tools towards integrated, agentic operating systems supported by strong data foundations and talent.