India and the Gulf Race Ahead on Agentic AI Deployment

With U.S.-based companies like Visa, Mastercard, Microsoft and AWS leading the Prompt Economy’s development, it’s understandable to see agentic AI from a Western lens. But it’s not an inclusive one. The rest of the world — especially the Middle East — is taking notice.

In fact, a Jan. 15 article published by the World Economic Forum argues that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are emerging as early leaders in the practical deployment of agentic AI, moving faster than many global peers from experimentation to scaled use. The WEF points to evidence that 19% of GCC organizations have already advanced beyond pilot programs into full implementation, driven by a combination of unified national AI strategies, strong executive sponsorship and regulatory alignment. Rather than replacing human roles, agentic AI systems are shifting work toward higher-value activities, with humans increasingly focused on judgment, oversight, ethics and relationship management while AI agents handle verification, monitoring and routine decision-making.

The WEF attributes the region’s momentum to structural advantages that reduce friction in scaling advanced AI systems. Sovereign cloud infrastructure keeps sensitive data within national borders, regulatory bodies are moving quickly and iteratively, and governments, regulators and enterprises tend to advance in parallel rather than at cross-purposes. At the same time, the Forum stresses that technology alone is not enough.

Organizations seeing the strongest results are investing in trust, workforce training and genuine operating-model transformation, treating AI agents as accountable digital workers with defined roles. If these conditions hold, the WEF suggests the GCC could set a global benchmark for how agentic AI can enhance productivity while strengthening human capability and institutional control.

New Zealand Checks In

A recent MIT Sloan Management Review article, drawing on research from the MIT Center for Information Systems Research, uses New Zealand–based telecommunications provider One New Zealand Group to illustrate how organizations outside the major tech hubs are putting agentic AI into practical use.

The case shows agentic AI moving beyond experimentation into day-to-day operations, where AI agents already handle routine customer inquiries, execute plan upgrades, create service tickets and support employees in real time. These uses reflect a broader international pattern in which firms are deploying AI agents not as standalone tools, but as embedded operational actors that improve speed, consistency and resilience while keeping humans in supervisory roles.

The New Zealand example also highlights how organizations are evolving their business models as agentic AI matures. One New Zealand is progressing from AI that augments existing processes toward more autonomous systems that can anticipate needs and act within defined guardrails. The company already relies on agents to monitor network performance, forecast demand and recommend actions during weather-related disruptions, and plans to extend this approach into marketing, where AI agents would design and adapt personalized campaigns under human oversight. The researchers argue that this shift reflects a broader international attitude toward agentic AI: value is created not simply by automation, but by redesigning how work gets done and deciding where AI can act on behalf of customers versus where human judgment remains essential.

“Companies seeking to adapt the way that One NZ has need to understand where they can create value,” the article states. “Does your company merely assist customers, or can it represent their goals through autonomous action?”

The View From India and Singapore

A recent report highlighted by Computer Weekly, citing research from Thoughtworks, finds that India and Singapore are moving faster than global peers in adopting agentic AI, reflecting a broader shift in how organizations view AI’s role in growth.

Based on a global survey of 3,500 IT decision-makers and C-suite executives, the research shows that 77% of businesses worldwide are now prioritizing revenue generation from AI rather than cost reduction. That transition is most advanced in parts of Asia, where executives express higher confidence, urgency and willingness to embed autonomous AI systems into core operations rather than treating them as experimental tools.

India emerges as the most aggressive adopter of agentic AI, with nearly half of organizations citing it as a primary strategic focus and more than 49% of executives expecting AI to deliver over 15% revenue uplift in the next five years. Singapore follows closely, driven in part by competitive pressure, with two-thirds of executives reporting anxiety about falling behind if they do not adopt AI quickly. The report also challenges common assumptions about workforce displacement, finding that India leads globally in AI-driven job creation as companies redesign roles around human–AI collaboration.

Together, the findings suggest that in India and Singapore, agentic AI is increasingly viewed not as a productivity add-on, but as foundational infrastructure shaping business models, leadership structures and long-term growth strategies .

“The CAIO role is no longer experimental,” the article states. “It sits at the center of strategy. The companies that are separating from the pack are the ones that make AI part of their foundation rather than a side project.”