India well set to lead AI adoption & growth : Meta's Sandhya Devanathan

Imagine this.

You’re a growing Indian brand. Your audience is digital-first, multilingual, price-aware, and scrolling fast. You’re expected to personalize ads, respond in real time, test creatives weekly and still keep costs in check. Sounds overwhelming, right?

This is exactly where AI starts to make sense practically, not just as a buzzword.

Recently, The Economic Times (Brand Equity) highlighted how India is uniquely positioned to lead global AI adoption in advertising thanks to our scale, talent pool, developer ecosystem, and massive digital consumption. And honestly, that insight feels very real on the ground.

Imagine using AI to quickly understand consumer patterns across regions, predict what kind of content might work, or optimise campaigns faster than ever while humans focus on strategy, storytelling and decision-making. That’s the sweet spot.

What’s becoming clear is that India is using AI to understand people better their needs, behaviours, and expectations, and build more meaningful brand experiences around that insight.

But here’s my honest take:

AI alone won’t build brands here. Human understanding will. AI will simply amplify it.

The future isn’t about replacing teams with tools. It’s about teams who know how to use tools better.

Curious, how are you imagining AI fitting into your growth story?