From News Desk
2025 is coming to an end and another New Year is on the horizon. This moment always brings hopes, aspirations, new goals to achieve and learnings from the year gone by. This is the time to reflect, introspect and see ahead for future prospects.
On this occasion, several industry leaders have expressed their thoughts to us –
“2025 marked as a year where India’s digital ambitions became more grounded and more mature. Across enterprises and public institutions, the conversation shifted from what technology to adopt to how to build it responsibly and at scale. AI gained real traction under the India AI Mission, sovereign cloud adoption deepened and digital infrastructure expanded beyond metros, especially with GCCs and businesses looking at Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities as long-term growth hubs.
What stood out this year was a growing emphasis on foundations. As AI pilots moved closer to production and digital footprints widened, organisations began paying closer attention to data quality, network reliability, cybersecurity and governance. The rollout of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act was an important milestone in this journey, it brought much-needed clarity around accountability, data ownership, and trust, influencing how cloud and digital platforms are designed and deployed.
Building on the policy support and AI-led investments gained this year, the ecosystem is well-positioned to sustain momentum into the next phase of growth. As enterprises move beyond experimentation to operationalise AI, demand is shifting toward secure, compliant, and production-ready digital infrastructure. For ICT providers like Ishan Technologies, the opportunity lies in enabling AI at scale through sovereign cloud, resilient data centres, and strong cybersecurity, supporting GCC expansion and regulated sectors as they accelerate digital adoption.”
– Pinkesh Kotecha, Chairman and MD, Ishan Technologies
“This year has shown that AI is the core engine driving customer engagement. During peak events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, our platform recorded a staggering 12.2 billion interactions globally, with RCS experiencing a 277% surge in messaging traffic on Black Friday alone. And as the volume hits a record, AI enabled brands to deliver hyper-personalised omnichannel experiences without sacrificing speed or security. Customers demand faster and smarter interactions than ever before. By 2026, AI-powered agents are expected to manage up to 95% of routine interactions, providing instant and personalized support around the clock. They are evolving beyond basic FAQ bots into human-like, agentic models capable of complex, autonomous conversations, allowing human teams to focus on cases that require empathy and judgment.
Platforms like WhatsApp and RCS are becoming super apps, integrating messaging, marketing and payments within a single interface to deliver complete customer journeys seamlessly. As AI matures and adoption scales, organisations that unify first-party and internal data while ensuring compliance will unlock the full potential of intelligent and trusted customer experiences. With regulatory frameworks such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDA) and updated telecom cybersecurity rules shaping how data is collected and managed, growth in digital engagement can strengthen trust. Looking ahead, Infobip, with its secure infrastructure and our vast global network, will continue to create innovative solutions and enable the brands to create meaningful journeys.”
–Harsha Solanki, VP GM Asia, Infobip
“Tools don’t create cyber resilience – strategy does. For example, when AI becomes part of how you detect, respond and learn, it transforms operations, it stops being an add-on and becomes force multiplier and help to address sophisticated AI driven ransomware attacks. In an age of AI and quantum disruption, the best defence won’t be technology; it will be a security-aware culture of learning, agility, adaptability and purpose driven talent.”
–Rohit Aradhya, VP and MD, App Security Engineering, Barracuda Networks
“2025 has been a year where people’s relationship with technology has become more personal and more data-driven than ever. From creators and gamers to everyday users, the demand for faster, more reliable and higher-capacity flash memory increased as digital content, AI tools and real-time experiences became part of daily life. The industry saw strong momentum toward high-speed interfaces, performance-focused SSDs and memory solutions that are capable of handling heavier workloads without losing their reliability.
Looking ahead to 2026, the focus will shift even more toward enabling seamless, intelligent experiences, where storage works quietly in the background but plays a critical role. As a leader in flash memory innovation, Lexar remains committed to designing solutions that empower people to create more, work at a higher speed, and have confidence in their data, while being a forerunner in the next stage of a AI data-driven future.”
–Fissal Oubida, GM, Middle East, Africa, CIS & Indian Subcontinent, Lexar
“India’s enterprises are uniquely positioned to lead the connected intelligence revolution – not despite our complexity, but because of it. We’re operating at a scale and diversity that few markets can match – teams spanning metros to tier-2 cities, multiple languages, generations and work styles all collaborating in real time. This complexity is teaching us something powerful – the future isn’t about layering AI onto old ways of working. It’s about fundamentally reimagining how work gets done when humans and AI operate as teammates, not tools.
The Indian companies getting this right aren’t just automating tasks – they’re building agentic operating models where decision-making is distributed, knowledge flows freely and execution happens instantly. They’re proving that in a digital-first economy, your competitive moat isn’t just your technology stack; it’s how intelligently your organisation thinks and acts as one connected system. In 2026, we’ll see connected intelligence becoming the next competitive advantage and for India’s fastest-growing companies, Slack will be the foundation of that advantage. Not just as a collaboration tool, but as the operating system for their enterprise intelligence where human expertise and AI capabilities converge, institutional knowledge is activated in real time and execution happens at the speed of ambition.”
-Himanshu Rajpal, Regional Sales Director, Salesforce India
In 2025, India quietly crossed a tipping point for smart buildings and cities. When a USD 12.5 billion smart building market is projected to grow almost nine-fold this decade, and AI–IoT energy systems are already delivering 20–30% power savings, automation stops being a ‘nice-to-have’ project and becomes a boardroom KPI for asset owners and city planners. At the same time, the Urban Challenge Fund, 50‑year state infra loans, and higher allocations for metros and urban housing have created a clear policy signal – every new rupee going into urban infrastructure is expected to be greener, safer and digitally managed end-to-end.
From Secutech’s vantage point as a systems integrator, 2025 has been the year when three conversations converged; energy optimisation, ELV unification and net‑zero readiness. Clients are no longer asking for isolated BMS, fire, CCTV, or access control upgrades; they are asking how to build a ‘single pane of glass’ command centres that can manage 75 million-plus connected devices, support predictive maintenance by default, and demonstrate compliance with green and NZEB targets over the life of the asset.
As we head into 2026, prepare for the upcoming National Budget priorities for the year, and await the government’s longer-term Viksit Bharat 2047 vision, our expectation is simple: continued support for smart, energy‑efficient projects and clear guidelines that make it easier to adopt unified ELV and automation from the design stage itself. The more India plans ‘digital and AI‑ready’ buildings upfront, instead of retrofitting later, the faster we will see safer, greener and more efficient assets across offices, homes and public infrastructure.
—Aditya Prabhu, CEO & Co-Founder, Secutech
“We are witnessing a fundamental shift in how India views ambition. For a young dreamer in an urban area, an entrepreneur in a small town, or a gig worker balancing multiple jobs, the opportunity to chase a dream is no longer dependent on location or background. Today, access to credit is empowering people who might not have had this chance before. And that’s the change I find most inspiring, being a part of the ecosystem that is working to bridge the credit gap.
Through this year, we’ve seen how access to credit can be the spark for growth. Whether it’s a small business owner buying stock for their shop, a freelancer investing in a new skill, or a young person pursuing their education, credit is creating possibilities.
At mPokket, our mission has always been to provide the right support at the right time. Whether it’s a young professional looking to upskill or an entrepreneur working to expand their business, we are working behind the scenes to help the futures of young India thrive.
As we’ve watched our customers grow, we’ve also grown. This year, we saw a 22% increase in new-to-credit customers, showing that more people are stepping into the financial mainstream. And as their needs have evolved, we have adapted our offerings as well. For those ready to take on bigger challenges, we’ve expanded our loan ticket sizes reaching up to Rs 2 lakh, because people need a little extra to achieve big dreams.
But beyond the numbers, the real shift is in the confidence people have in managing their finances. This isn’t just about making credit available; it’s about giving people the confidence to use it wisely, to invest in their future without the fear of falling behind.
The next phase of credit in India will be about equal opportunity. And if we stay focused on responsibility and transparency, we can continue to touch lives and build futures, one opportunity at a time.”
–Gaurav Jalan, Founder & CEO, mPokket
“2025 has been a defining year for India’s digital payments ecosystem. UPI’s rapid evolution, the rise of credit on UPI, increasing adoption of RuPay credit and debit cards and the continued growth of net banking have collectively ushered the ecosystem into a new phase of maturity. The progress of Bharat Connect, India’s unified bill payment platform managed by NBBL, has further strengthened this momentum by making everyday payments more seamless, secure and widely accessible. Coupled with stronger cyber-safety initiatives led by the RBI, telecom networks and banks, public trust in digital payments has deepened meaningfully. Looking ahead to 2026, digital payments will move beyond speed and convenience to become a true enabler of opportunity. Smarter credit pathways, higher net banking limits and increasingly interoperable infrastructure will empower businesses of every size – from small merchants to large enterprises—to scale with confidence. At InstiFI, our focus remains on shaping this next chapter by enabling borderless commerce, equipping merchants with intelligent financial tools and contributing to a future where digital payments accelerate ambition and inclusive growth.”
–Prakash Ravindran, CEO and Director, InstiFI
The above comments show that in the industry, there are many expectations from the evolving AI. At the same time, the industry leaders want to redefine the scope of work while working alongwith AI. They are also rethinking the way the digital techs should evolve n this environment.
It remains to be seen what trends will emerge in 2026 as a result of these evolving thoughts.
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