Everyone knows how AI is becoming a part of our everyday lives, and there’s a recent report released by Meta with Alvarez & Marsal India which reveals adoption trends of AI in Indian startups. In that recent report, they highlighted that nearly 70% of startups in India are integrating AI into their business operations. But when you open the report and go through it, there are several insights that help almost every startup in India.
It highlighted that AI is now majorly being used in marketing, and adoption rate is about 87%. It is reported that they have seen an approximately 30% improvement in cost per acquisition (CPA). Meaning with the use of AI in marketing there is a strong improvement in cost per acquisition resulting in reduced expenses.
Let us understand how AI is today actively being used in businesses and startups and what the reasons are behind its active adoption or integration rates. And at last, what can we as startup enthusiasts learn?
Every startup’s long-term direction clearly depends on their marketing. You might have a great product, but if enough marketing is not done, you’ll be out of the game. This happens with many of the companies irrespective of their size. Marketing completely works on AB testing style. No one knows what works, and it requires a huge budget for the sources to do marketing. That might be from ad copies, content, or images and videos. But this scenario is being changed now.
AI has quietly become the backbone of modern startup marketing. While product, operations, and finance functions are still cautiously experimenting with AI, marketing has already gone all-in. Why? Marketing is the sole domain where AI provides immediate and quantifiable returns on investment.
In marketing, AI is extensively used for predictive marketing, Gen AI creatives, AI-powered ad ranking, and also for social media sentiment. Marketing teams live in a high-speed, high-volume world creating campaigns, testing creatives, and optimizing funnels. AI tools perfectly fit this environment. Whether it’s ChatGPT for ad copy, Jasper for email flows, or Midjourney for visual content, marketers can now 10x their output with a lesser headcount.
Unlike other departments, marketing is also data-rich and pattern-heavy, which makes it ideal for training and deploying AI models. Add to this the low barrier to entry and intense competition in customer acquisition, and you get rapid, widespread adoption. Most Indian startups, if we see their budget allocations or spending data, have a huge chunk going towards marketing. Now this is an essential move and growth by Indian startups. Because of this, cost per acquisition has improved 30% comparatively, which is a good sign.
But marketing is not the only segment where AI leveraging rates are higher. Not just the cost per acquisition but also the efficiency rates—nearly 30-35% increased efficiency through AI-generated marketing creatives. And 30-40% increased ROAS based on AI-driven performance marketing.
If we dig deeper into the report, it also shows that customer experience has 80% adoption rates. Startups today are using AI to talk, listen, and serve customers better. From chatbots to multi-language support, virtual try-ons help you “feel” the product before you buy. AI has now become a crucial part of your sales team. Even self-service portals powered by AI are letting customers fix issues without waiting in line.
This is how AI is tapping on almost every customer touchpoint, and that is driving the satisfied customer experiences. Marketing and customer experience segments are the major ones adopted in business operations. But along with them, 79% adoption is seen in customization and pricing, 52% in operations such as supply chain optimization and inventory management, and even in product development, there is an adoption of nearly 28%. In product development, it is for customer insights and design automation.
Now, broadly, we discussed what the major adoption segments are in business operations. But if we zoom out a bit and focus broadly on which sectors are actively adopting, we will understand this clearly.
Though almost every sector is taking advantage of AI, there are three main segments where the leveraging rates are higher. One is health and fitness with 88%, ed-tech with 88%, and beauty and personal care with 86%. Health & Fitness, EdTech, and Beauty & Personal Care lead in AI adoption because they operate where personal need meets daily habit. These sectors demand high levels of personalization and routine user engagement and generate rich data, which makes them ideal places for AI.
Users in these spaces are also more willing to share personal information in exchange for real results, such as better health, smarter learning, or better skin care. The emotional connection is higher, so even simple AI features like personalized workouts, adaptive lessons, or virtual try-ons feel magical and deeply engaging. That’s why, broadly, these are a few reasons why we can see that higher rates of AI are in these sectors alone.
This report also highlighted that the remaining 30% of startups that are not using AI will also adopt AI in the next 12-18 months. Meaning by 2026, 90% of startups in India will adopt AI in their day-to-day operations and in their critical operations.
If you are a startup founder or enthusiast, next time you are building something, take advantage of AI, because it is faster, smarter, and cheaper, which helps you to complete the boring tasks and hectic work in the easiest way possible. And as the reports say, with the use of AI, we are seeing higher efficiencies, better results, and a reduction in expenses.
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