Despite growing AI deployment rate, only 6.6% teams use AI tools: Survey

Despite growing investment in AI-enabled sales training, organisations struggle to link adoption with business outcomes, according to an upGrad Enterprise survey

Even as companies are spending heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) tools for sales training and enablement, they are struggling to convert adoption into measurable business outcomes, according to a report by upGrad Enterprise, shared exclusively with Business Standard.

 

The findings highlight a disconnect between technology deployment and practical utilisation. While 49 per cent of organisations have deployed AI and digital enablement tools, only 6.6 per cent of teams actively use simulation-based training infrastructure. Further, 61 per cent said they want specialised AI practice tools integrated into existing corporate systems.

 

The report, which covered more than 10,000 respondents across sectors including pharmaceuticals, banking and financial services (BFSI), manufacturing, consumer goods, information technology (IT), retail, and automotive, also found that 54 per cent of organisations lose at least 10 per cent of potential revenue due to capability and skill deficits.

 

“The difference between the investment and impact is because of one of three reasons. First is use-case clarity. Just because you've provided AI training, an individual doesn't know what use case they need to use it for. Second, the tech stack may break somewhere because AI is only as good as the data that you feed to with. Third, is the relation to either a revenue or a cost metric for the organisation,” said Arushee Aggarwal, chief executive officer (CEO), upGrad Enterprise.

 

The connection to broader organisational objectives such as revenue, cost, brand, shareholder value and employee value is often missing, Aggarwal added.

 

Traditional training programmes also appear to be falling short. Nearly 79 per cent of respondents said training is not built around real customer conversations, while 47.9 per cent want a greater say in training design.

 

At the same time, 79.1 per cent of organisations have not built the infrastructure needed to connect training investments with commercial outcomes.

 

Aggarwal said the greatest potential of AI lies in simulating real customer interactions and analysing recorded sales conversations.

 

“The maximum impact has been in real-life simulation of customer interaction,” she said, adding that AI can help employees practice scenarios, understand customer needs, and improve frontline performance.

 

upGrad Enterprise is the corporate skilling and workforce transformation division of global skilling firm upGrad.

 

It has so far partnered nearly 3,000 mid and large organisations to equip their workforce with market-ready skills and mindsets that drive success.

REALITY CHECK

• Despite 49% AI deployment rate, only 6.6% teams actively leverage simulation infra
• AI skill gaps cost firms up to 10% of revenue
• 79% flag training not built around real customer conversations
• 47.9% want a say in training design