India celebrates AI Appreciation Day today: Here's what industry leaders are saying

July 16 marks AI Appreciation Day. A day to reflect, recharge, and maybe nervously laugh as your text generator writes faster than you ever could. On paper, it’s a celebration of the role artificial intelligence plays in transforming businesses, solving problems, and occasionally writing your marketing copy.

But let’s be honest. If this “day” feels like it was invented by ChatGPT’s HR department, you’re not alone.

And yet, under the semi-satirical surface, this year’s AI Appreciation Day marks a real turning point for India Inc. After years of proofs of concept and “AI-powered” buzzwords, the shift to scaled, hybrid deployment is finally (and slowly) happening.

AI gets serious: Hybrid is hot, cloud is not (always)

“AI is no longer a futuristic concept — it’s a business-critical imperative today,” says Amit Luthra, Managing Director, Lenovo ISG India.

But here’s the catch: most Indian companies still aren’t sprinting to the cloud. 63% prefer hybrid or on-prem setups for their AI workloads, according to Lenovo’s CIO Playbook 2025. Why? Because latency, privacy, and budget are still very much a thing.

Luthra adds that 49% of Indian enterprises are still in planning or evaluation stages. In other words, half the country’s corporate AI dreams are still in PowerPoint.

Still, the mood is shifting from curiosity to conviction. And infrastructure is finally catching up.

Dell: AI is the new backbone, not a side project

Venkat Sitaram from Dell Technologies India puts it bluntly: “AI has become a strategic cornerstone… The future belongs to those who responsibly scale their AI initiatives.”

Translation: Enough with the experiments. Indian companies are now deploying AI across manufacturing, BFSI, and healthcare, but they need infrastructure that can span edge, core, and cloud. Which is another way of saying: “Buy more servers, please. But smart ones.”

Twilio: AI in marketing isn’t about fake names in emails anymore

Chris Koehler, CMO at Twilio, knows the hype cycle better than most. His team is already using AI to route 90% of inbound leads, deflect 75% of support tickets, and launch campaigns at speed. But he says the real shift is emotional: “The future of marketing isn’t AI versus human. It’s AI plus human. That’s where the real magic happens.”

Also, Twilio’s data shows that 88% of Indian consumers drop off when marketing feels irrelevant, but 79% are willing to spend more when the experience is genuinely personalised. So no, it’s not enough for your AI to remember a customer’s birthday. It needs to understand why that customer is browsing for a gadget at 2am,  and respond with the right message, not just their name.

Deloitte: AI with purpose, not panic

Deloitte’s Saurabh Kumar offers a grounded perspective, focused less on tools, more on intent: “Operational excellence is just the beginning; inclusive intelligence is the destination.”

In other words, using AI to optimise spreadsheets is fine, but using it to empower people is where the real future lies. Less efficiency theatre, more intentional design.

So... does AI appreciate us back?

I'm not saying AI is sentient. But if it were, it’d probably ask for better GPUs, cleaner datasets, and fewer headlines calling it “scary but exciting.”

This AI Appreciation Day, Indian enterprises aren’t just clapping for the tech; they’re being told to grow up, scale smartly, and build responsibly. And while most still haven’t cracked full-scale adoption, the direction is clear: hybrid-first, human-in-the-loop, and results over rhetoric. The future is “AI plus human,” not “AI versus human.”