Cisco AI Readiness Index reveals 3x faster adoption among AI-ready companies

Cisco’s AI Readiness Index 2025 has found that a small but consistent group of organisations, the “Pacesetters”, are widening the gap in AI adoption and performance. Representing 17% of Indian companies and 13% globally, these leaders are three times more likely than others to scale AI pilots and 72% more likely to achieve measurable business value.

Cisco’s global survey of more than 8,000 AI and business leaders across 30 markets reveals that the most AI-prepared firms are not just experimenting with AI, they are operationalising it. Their secret: a disciplined, system-level approach to aligning strategy, infrastructure, and governance.

Agentic AI on the rise, but readiness lags

The report finds growing enthusiasm for agentic AI, systems that act autonomously and execute complex tasks. In India, 91% of organisations plan to deploy AI agents, and 41% expect them to work alongside employees within a year.

Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s President and Chief Product Officer, said, “We’re moving past the era of question-answering chatbots and stepping into the next phase of AI, agents that independently execute tasks. Companies that are further along are seeing dramatically stronger returns than their peers.”

Yet, while ambition is high, readiness is uneven. Only 20% of Indian companies describe their networks as flexible or adaptable enough to support large-scale AI, and one in four admit their systems can’t handle the data or compute complexity required for AI workloads.

The Pacesetters’ blueprint for success

Cisco’s research identifies key differentiators that give the Pacesetters their competitive edge:

• 99% have a defined AI roadmap versus 67% in India.

• 79% rank AI as their top investment priority (32% in India).

• 71% can instantly scale networks for AI workloads (20% in India).

•  62% have mature, repeatable AI innovation processes (16% in India).

• 87% are highly aware of AI-specific threats (51% in India).

As a result, 90% of Pacesetters report improvements in profitability, productivity, and innovation, compared with 71% of Indian organisations overall.

AI Infrastructure Debt: a growing risk

Cisco also introduces a new concept, AI Infrastructure Debt, describing the buildup of outdated systems, deferred upgrades, and underfunded architectures that reduce long-term AI value.

The early warning signs are clear:

• 41% of organisations expect workloads to grow by over 30% in three years.

• 64% struggle to centralise data.

• Only 26% have sufficient GPU capacity.

• Just over one in three can prevent or detect AI-specific threats.

Cisco warns that without stronger governance and investment discipline, this “debt” could erode AI’s long-term impact.

Readiness drives results

The 2025 Index makes one message clear: value follows readiness. The organisations investing in scalable networks, resilient data infrastructure, and AI security today are the ones seeing the highest returns tomorrow.

As AI shifts from experimentation to execution, Cisco’s findings underline a new truth for enterprises: in the race to AI value, preparedness is the ultimate differentiator.