Bengaluru, Dec 14 (IANS): As firms' appetite for the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) grows, 71 per cent Indian organisations are looking at increased process automation as a key benefit which in turn is expected to spike spends on this technology over the next 18 months, a report said on Thursday.

The Intel India commissioned report, undertaken by the International Data Corporation (IDC) that surveyed 194 Indian organisations across sectors, said that nearly 75 per cent of the firms surveyed anticipate benefits in business process efficiency and employee productivity with the use of AI.

While 64 per cent of the respondents believe that this technology can empower them in revenue augmentation through better targeting of offers and improved sales processes, 76 per cent of the companies are or believe that they will face a shortage of skilled personnel to harness the power of AI.

"This research is a small step towards comprehending this knowledge, and enabling companies, such as ours, shape strategy and move ahead in the right direction," Prakash Mallya, Managing Director, Sales and Marketing Group, Intel India, said in a statement.

Intel currently powers 97 per cent of data centre servers running AI workloads worldwide and has been investing in the development of the ecosystem in India.

"Indian enterprises have been quick to adopt AI in the recent past, with nearly one in five organisations (22.2 per cent) across the four verticals surveyed implementing the technology in some way. This number is anticipated to soar considerably by mid-2019 with nearly seven in 10 firms (68.6 per cent) anticipated to deploy (it)," the company said.

However, concerns around adoption of AI continue with high cost of solutions, acute shortage of skilled professionals, unclear return on investment and cybersecurity emerging as the key hindrances.