India’s next AI leadership moment won’t be driven by GenAI alone

While Generative AI garners global attention, India has quietly established itself as a leader in operational AI. For years, Indian companies have deployed AI at scale in complex environments like transportation and public safety, building expertise in applied AI for real-time decision-making and critical infrastructure intelligence.

17 June 2026: For the last two years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in India has largely been discussed through the lens of Generative AI. Enterprises are experimenting with copilots; governments are framing AI policies and boardrooms are trying to identify practical use cases that can move beyond the pilot stage.

India is also emerging as one of the world’s most enthusiastic AI markets. According to a recent report, the country recorded nearly 3.6 million enrolments in Generative AI courses, the highest globally, reflecting both growing awareness and rapid mainstream interest in AI technologies.

This has also created a broader perception that India is still in the early phases of its AI journey: rich in potential but still catching up on large-scale implementation. That assumption, however, overlooks an important reality.

Long before Generative AI became mainstream, several Indian technology companies were already building and deploying AI systems at scale inside airports, transport networks, smart cities, industrial infrastructure and public safety ecosystems. In many ways, India’s AI evolution began not through chat interfaces or consumer applications but through operational systems that had to work in complex, unpredictable, real-world environments.

The difference is that while the world was debating AI’s possibilities, parts of India were already deploying it at operational scale.

The rise of operational AI in India

Unlike many global AI markets where adoption initially accelerated through digital consumer experiences, India’s AI requirements emerged from infrastructure complexity.

Rapid urbanisation, dense populations, transportation pressure and expanding public infrastructure created environments where traditional monitoring systems were no longer enough. Video surveillance, for instance, could no longer remain limited to recording and storage. The sheer volume of visual data being generated required systems capable of analysing, interpreting, and responding in real time. This transition is now becoming one of the most significant shifts in enterprise AI.

According to industry estimates, India is expected to have over one billion surveillance cameras by 2030, making it one of the world’s largest generators of visual data. The real challenge now lies in helping cities, enterprises and public systems make sense of this growing stream of visual information in real time.

India, meanwhile, has emerged as one of the fastest adopters of AI in workplaces globally. India leads worldwide in workplace AI adoption across both employees and managers. Yet while most conversations remain focused on Generative AI, another category of AI has already been evolving for years in the background.

This evolution is already visible across India’s critical infrastructure, where video infrastructure is steadily transitioning from passive surveillance architecture into intelligent operational systems. AI-powered video analytics today is being used not only for security monitoring, but also for traffic optimisation, incident prediction, crowd flow analysis, safety compliance and real-time situational awareness.

The larger shift here is that video is no longer being treated merely as recorded evidence. It is increasingly becoming a live intelligence layer that enables organisations and city administrators to make faster and more informed operational decisions.

Companies like Videonetics, which began building AI-powered video technologies as early as 2008, today support deployments across more than 150 cities and 80 airports while managing over 350,000 connected cameras. As Indian-origin AI and video computing platforms continue to scale globally, industry recognition is also beginning to reflect this shift, with firms like OMDIA consistently ranking Indian VMS players among leading providers in APAC. What makes this significant is not simply the scale, but the fact that these deployments reflect how AI in India has already evolved into critical infrastructure intelligence long before the recent Generative AI wave.

Why India may have an advantage in applied AI

As enterprises move beyond experimentation, the AI conversation is shifting from novelty to utility. Questions around scalability, cybersecurity, governance and measurable outcomes now matter more than isolated demonstrations. This shift may work in India’s favour.

Unlike markets where AI evolved largely in controlled enterprise settings, Indian deployments have operated in far more demanding environments. Systems across transportation networks, smart cities, industrial corridors and public infrastructure have had to function amid dense populations, unpredictable movement patterns and enormous operational scale.

That experience has helped India build strong expertise in applied AI, focused not just on algorithms, but on resilience, accuracy and real-time responsiveness. This shift is also reflected in the rise of Indian-origin AI companies that have spent years building technologies for large-scale operational environments rather than controlled demonstrations.

Building systems for environments such as transportation networks, public infrastructure and urban operations requires far more than simply developing AI models. It demands long-term investments in proprietary IP, deep R&D capabilities, AI frameworks and deployment ecosystems that can operate reliably at scale.

As enterprises and public systems become increasingly data-driven, adopting AI-powered operational intelligence platforms is a strategic necessity. Organisations today are expected to respond faster, improve operational efficiency, strengthen safety and make more informed decisions in real time, something traditional monitoring systems were never designed to support.

Several Indian companies operating in the video management and infrastructure intelligence space have quietly evolved from conventional surveillance systems into AI-driven video computing platforms, reflecting a broader trend that is often overlooked in global AI conversations: India has been building deep expertise in applied and operational AI for years.

Generative AI may have brought artificial intelligence into mainstream attention. But across sectors, India has already spent years building AI systems designed for scale, complexity and impact.

The next phase of AI leadership may well be shaped by that experience.

Source - ET CIO

Media Contact: marcom@videonetics.com

Note to Editors

About Videonetics:

Videonetics’ Unified Video Management Platform, powered by an indigenously developed True AI and deep learning engine, offers a comprehensive, modular, yet integrated solution. This platform includes cutting-edge applications such as Video Management System (VMS), Video Analytics (VA), Traffic Management System (TMS), and Face Recognition System (FRS). Additionally, Videonetics' Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS) Platform provides a cutting-edge, AI-powered, cloud-agnostic video management solution tailored for data centre companies, telecom providers, and managed IT service providers, for enabling organizations to achieve robust, scalable, and accessible cloud-based video surveillance. Trained on extensive data sets, our
solutions are robust, intelligent, and adaptable across various industries and sectors. Our products are cloud-ready, cloud-agnostic, ONVIF compliant, and OS & hardware agnostic, ensuring they are scalable and interoperable.

Videonetics has been consistently ranked as the #1 Video Management Software provider in India and among the top 10 in Asia (OMDIA Informa Tech 2025). Driven by innovation, wired to ‘Look Deeper, we are committed to making the world a safer, smarter, and happier place.

For more information, visit www.videonetics.com