APAC Companies Seeking ROI from AI Investments in 2025

Research from IBM finds just 11% of enterprises across the Asia-Pacific region anticipate seeing the benefits of their AI adoption within the next two years.

By Maggie Mancini

Indian enterprises are moving beyond AI experimentation to maximise the impact of their AI investments, according to a report commissioned by IBM. Many of those surveyed from India expect AI to deliver longer-term benefits for their business in areas including innovation (26%), revenue generation (21%), cost savings (12%), and increased employee productivity (12%). The game changer? Developing cost-effective AI solutions with the flexibility to use open-source models and seamless integrations between multiple vendors.  

Nearly 60% of surveyed organisations across the APAC region anticipate realising the benefits of their AI investments within two to five years. Only 11% expect returns within the next two years.  

In 2025, the primary focus of AI investments for Indian organisations will centre on enhancing customer experience (27%), planning and strategy (16%), and optimising IT functions (16%). To realise these goals, organisations must address key challenges, including data accessibility issues (46%), limited AI skills (42%), and difficulty in integration and scaling (38%).  

The report identifies five strategic trends shaping APAC’s AI future.  

• AI-led revenue generation takes centre stage. Organisations will likely adopt a strategic approach to AI in 2025, prioritising projects based on feasibility and business impact. 
• Smaller open-source models emerge as a powerful alternative for many AI applications. Purpose-build models will be in demand, including those designed for local languages, nuanced regional contexts, and simpler computational tasks. These models require significantly less training data and generate a smaller carbon footprint than the large language models that have so far dominated AI discussions. 
• Enterprises are embracing new tools for visibility, governance, and AI integration. APAC organisations are increasingly leveraging open-source AI models to drive efficiency. This can streamline the management around AI solutions, offering flexibility, cost-effectiveness, improved security, and seamless integrations between different vendors.  
• AI agents are redefining the future of work. Organisations will increasingly adopt agentic workflows, powered by AI agents, to autonomously execute tasks, collaborate with human workers, and drive value across the business. Agentic AI, combining AI with automation, has the potential to achieve major gains in efficiency, customer experience, and decision-making. However, internal guardrails and ethical policies are needed.  
• Human-centred innovation is driving the next phase of AI. A human-centric AI approach will likely become a popular and powerful tool for employees to augment their roles and automate routines tasks.