Skills, financial support, AI access key challenges for tech MSMEs: Nasscom

Around 94% of tech MSMEs acknowledged AI's ability to drive business growth, and 87% showed confidence in AI's potential to improve overall productivity in their enterprises

Skill development, financial support, and access to AI tech are the key challenges for Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) as they look at adopting AI, said a joint study by Nasscom and Meta released on Thursday.

According to the study, around 94 per cent of tech MSMEs acknowledged AI’s ability to drive business growth, and 87 per cent showed confidence in AI’s potential to improve overall productivity in their enterprises.

“MSMEs, pivotal to India's economic engine, are at a critical point in today’s fast-evolving tech landscape. Integrating AI offers them a unique chance for unprecedented growth, increased productivity, and sustainable innovation. Ecosystem collaboration, coupled with access to user-friendly tools and resources, is essential for tech-enabled MSMEs to harness AI's full potential and for India to maximise its AI dividends,” said Sangeeta Gupta, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Nasscom.

 

The whitepaper by Nasscom and Meta is based on an analysis of 300 tech MSMEs from across five Indian cities, including Gurugram, Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, and Hyderabad.

 

Key trends:-

94% MSMEs acknowledged AIs ability to drive business growth.

87% were confident about AIs capacity to improve overall productivity.

91% MSMEs advocated for making AI technologies more democratically accessible

Areas where AI can make an impact for tech MSMEs

48% of respondents support AI’s potential in content creation and marketing

46% said it can help in driving customer engagement,

68% find it helpful in developing new products and services

 

Challenges to AI adoption in MSMEs

65% of tech MSMEs struggling due to the limited awareness about available tools and resources

72% emphasised the necessity for AI training programs

59% of surveyed enterprises cited budgetary limitations in using AI resources