AI Appreciation Day 2025 : How Indian MSMEs Are Leveraging AI

As Artificial Intelligence has taken the centre stage around the world. Individuals as well as enterprises have witnessed a revolution in their day-to-day lives while using AI. Every year on July 16, AI Appreciation Day is observed to recognise the innovation that artificial intelligence has brought to various domains, including healthcare, BFSI, cybersecurity, and manufacturing.

AI has proven to be a great tool not only for big enterprises but also for MSMEs and SMBs. Slowly, smaller organisations have also joined the bandwagon and have started using AI in their daily operations and complex tasks.

However, adopting AI is not a smooth transition. Organisations have had their doubts about data security and other perspectives. Moreover, MSMEs and SMBs have struggled with upgrading their employees and preparing them for the adoption of AI.

This AI Appreciation Day, read the thoughts of the different leaders and experts who have voiced their opinions about how MSMEs and SMBs can and are leveraging AI to boost their growth. 

AI Appreciation Day 2025 - Industry talks about leveraging AI and the challenges in between

“India’s SMBs and MSMEs, which contribute over 30% to the country’s GDP and employ more than 110 million people, are at a pivotal moment in their digital journey. AI is no longer a distant ambition; it’s becoming a real enabler, helping businesses streamline operations, personalise customer experiences, and make smarter decisions at speed and scale.

This transformation is already visible across sectors, from small manufacturers using AI to optimise production planning to service providers automating customer support and local retailers leveraging AI-driven insights for inventory and demand forecasting. These advancements are putting the power of data-driven decision-making into the hands of business owners without the need for deep technical expertise.

On AI Appreciation Day, it’s worth reflecting on the fact that the real promise of AI lies not just in innovation, but in how inclusively and responsibly it’s being adopted, helping unlock India’s economic potential from the grassroots up.”

• Arun Kumar Parameswaran, EVP & MD - Sales & Distribution (South Asia) at Salesforce.

“AI has lowered the barrier for cyber adversaries. Threat actors now automate social engineering, misinformation campaigns, and credential harvesting at unprecedented speed and scale. CrowdStrike's 2025 Global Threat Report reveals adversaries are using large language models (LLMs) for sophisticated phishing and business email compromise attacks that closely replicate human behaviour.

However, AI also transforms how organisations detect and respond to cyber threats. Security teams face mounting pressure from increasing alert volumes, faster attack breakout times, and persistent talent shortages. This challenge particularly affects medium and smaller enterprises.

By leveraging AI effectively, security teams can better protect their organisations while shifting from reactive response to proactive threat disruption. Automating time-consuming and repetitive tasks allows agentic AI to become a force multiplier for security teams. This enables analysts to focus on understanding adversary behaviour, hunting advanced threats, and stopping breaches before they escalate.

CrowdStrike's Charlotte AI Agentic Detection Triage exemplifies the power and promise of AI in cybersecurity. The system autonomously validates and prioritises threats with over 98% accuracy, saving security teams up to 40 hours per week in manual alert triage. Built within a bounded autonomy framework, Charlotte AI allows organisations to define how and when automated decisions are made. This gives analysts full control to set thresholds, determine when human review is required, and maintain oversight.

This combination of machine speed and human-defined guardrails empowers defenders and ensures organisations of all sizes can operate at the speed of threats. AI Appreciation Day presents an opportunity for organisations to evaluate AI-powered security capabilities. These technologies enable security teams to regain control, reduce analyst burnout, and shift the AI advantage back to defenders.”

• Fabio Fratucello, Field CTO Worldwide, CrowdStrike

"Indian MSMEs are increasingly moving from basic automation to meaningful AI-driven outcomes, with 94% of tech-enabled MSMEs believing AI can drive business growth, according to a NASSCOM-Meta whitepaper. MSMEs often lack the large workforce and resources that bigger enterprises might possess; hence, MSMEs must focus on internal and external data as well as cutting-edge and trustworthy AI platforms to drive business growth efficiently. 

With a strong data foundation, a clear understanding of expectations, and strong governance and security, AI can enable small businesses to optimise operational work with intelligent workflows that learn, adapt, and act in real time. For example, Agentic AI tools can bridge the gap between data and business action, making AI and ML workflows easy, connected, and trusted for technical and non-technical users. This, in turn, allows teams to focus on strategic, predictive, and value-generating work rather than basic data retrieval. Now more than ever, MSMEs must invest in a cloud-based platform that provides access to diverse data, AI, and application workloads; fosters AI-ready teams; and embeds governance from day one. A platform that does the heavy lifting for them so that they can focus on newer innovations that ultimately lead to business growth.

At Snowflake, with our best-in-class scalable cloud-based platform and a strong ecosystem of partners, we are helping many of our MSME customers like Grow Indigo, Chalo and others to democratise their data with AI, take advantage of an agentic AI tool, empowering all users, regardless of technical skill, to extract actionable insights from both structured and unstructured data through natural language. Our AI innovations, like Snowflake Cortex AI, represent a major leap forward in how organisations can leverage AI to drive business outcomes by integrating their data and accelerating the adoption of AI for various business needs.”

• Dhiraj Narang, Director and Head of Partnerships, Snowflake, India, for AI Appreciation Day

“For small and mid-sized businesses, growth has always meant wearing multiple hats, juggling limited resources and staying lean. But AI is changing the game. MSMEs are no longer just trying to catch up; they're building smarter from day one. Whether it’s using AI tools to automate customer service, streamline backend operations, personalise marketing or get actionable insights from data, these businesses are moving faster and making sharper decisions. The beauty? You don’t need a huge team or a massive budget anymore, just the willingness to adapt. AI is helping SMBs work more efficiently, serve customers better and scale sustainably. It’s not the future; it's already here, powering the everyday hustle.”

•  Aditya Singh, Founder & Managing Director, Expedify

"Small and medium enterprises in India are taking advantage of technology to grow smartly and streamline operations. And with the pace at which the market is moving, Artificial Intelligence technology (AI) is emerging as the go-to technology.

What used to be viewed as a fancy addition for large enterprises has now been adapted by local firms to assist in everyday operations such as automating invoicing, updating inventories, and even creating personalised customer journeys.

The playing field has, indeed, been levelled in the recent past for MSMEs as AI is assisting them in cutting through the guesswork with data interpretation, sentiment analysis, and aiding in agile decision-making. Think of advanced chatbots that answer queries and resolve issues around the clock.

And the cherry on top? There's no need to go all-in on day one, as MSMEs can start with cloud-based tools or government support programs like SAMARTH Udyog Bharat 4.0 while slowly building in-house expertise.

AI is not merely a topic of discussion; rather, it’s a competency that aids in scaling above and beyond competitors, mastering agility, and staying one step ahead of the competition. The resilient business community looks at MSMEs not as participants in the race but as pioneers spearheading the use of technology, maestro."

• Dr. Yogesh Pawar, Strategic Consultant for Small Business Scale-Ups

“SMBs and MSMEs are leveraging AI with their main focus on customer engagement and operational efficiencies. Personalised experience, faster responses, gaining customer insights and predictive engagements are key use cases. AI helps businesses to understand customers’ needs better. Many businesses utilise AI to automate tasks such as invoicing, email communications, and inventory management, as well as supply chain operations. AI's contribution to marketing adds value by optimising advertisement spending and executing very focused and targeted campaigns, reducing costs and growing businesses faster. To summarise, AI enables small businesses to compete effectively, improve productivity, and enhance customer loyalty, all while maintaining lower operational costs.”

• Ritesh Gupta, SVP & CTO of Product Engineering Services at Happiest Minds Technologies

Conclusion: AI's steady march into the MSME playbook

The conversation around AI is no longer reserved for boardrooms and tech summits. It’s unfolding in small shop floors, lean back offices, and growing startups across India. From inventory checks in a small retail outlet in Bhopal to predictive analytics in a manufacturing unit in Pune, AI is finding its place in the daily rhythm of business. And that’s the story worth appreciating this July 16.

But here’s the real takeaway: for India’s MSMEs and SMBs, AI isn’t just about flashy tools or big-ticket transformation. It’s about solving real problems, lack of manpower, manual inefficiencies, and delayed decisions, and solving them smartly, at scale, and sustainably.

There are still roadblocks. Skills, trust, and affordability. But the mindset has shifted. Leaders no longer ask if they should use AI. They now ask how soon and how best. And as more purpose-built, cloud-enabled, no-code AI platforms come into play, the barriers are falling faster than before.

What we’re witnessing is a quiet but powerful shift, AI moving from aspiration to action. From being an ‘elite enabler’ to becoming the everyday ally of businesses that form the backbone of the Indian economy. And that, perhaps, is what makes this AI Appreciation Day matter.

Because for the first time, AI isn’t just celebrated in theory. It’s lived. In real-time. In real business. By real people.

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