By Nahas Mohammed
Software is the engine powering how Indian businesses operate, compete, and grow. Our IT sector is projected to reach $350 billion by 2026, and we’re already home to over 100 unicorns. It’s clear, India isn’t just building successful enterprises that compete globally–we’re shaping the future of technology and society, with developers and their software at the heart of this transformation.
The rise of agentic AI–the next frontier in the intelligence revolution–presents an opportunity to propel India’s innovation potential even further. It’s a technology Indian businesses can leverage right now, unlocking a new wave of opportunity that will shift early adopters into overdrive.
What are AI agents?
Developers have embraced AI faster than any sector of the workforce, adopting AI coding tools like GitHub Copilot to surge productivity by 55% and beyond. But we’re now moving beyond coding assistants. Today’s AI agents don’t just wait for instructions–they proactively plan, execute tasks independently, adapt to feedback, and use external tools and data to enhance their performance.
Embedded directly into developer workflows, AI agents are transforming what’s possible and supercharging human potential.
Let’s look at how AI agents can drive real business impact for organisations in India.
Increased developer impact
With 18 million developers on GitHub, India’s strength lies in its unmatched talent. With AI agents, this advantage is now exponential–businesses can accelerate development and deliver solutions faster and more efficiently than ever before.
Tools like coding agents act as a powerful developer teammate–drafting pull requests, running tests, fixing bugs, and refactoring code. By taking care of repetitive, time-consuming tasks asynchronously, AI agents free developers to focus on what matters most: solving complex problems, delivering customer value, and building exceptional products at global scale. What once took days can now take hours, transforming release cycles from marathons into sprints.
For India’s fast-growing startups and scale-ups, this speed can be the edge that turns regional success into global leadership–and it will keep Indian enterprises sharp and ahead of the competition.
Security and innovation–no compromise
For Indian organisations, particularly those in regulated sectors, security is non-negotiable.
Fortunately, organisations don’t have to compromise on security to unlock the benefits of AI agents. For example, with GitHub Copilot coding agent, an organisation’s existing security posture is rock solid; branch protections, repository rules, and organisational policies continue to work exactly as you’d expect.
Every pull request created by an agent requires human approval before any CI/CD workflows run, adding an extra layer of protection for the build and deployment environments. AI agents are designed to amplify an organisation’s innovation, not introduce risk–with the right guardrails in place, organisations have the confidence to move faster and propel innovation.
Lead the future
Integrating AI agents into software development equips organisations to thrive–adopting these tools signals innovation, attracts top talent, and builds resilience in a hyper-competitive world.
Additionally, this is not about automating everything in a race to the bottom. Instead, the real point of differentiation for businesses in an AI-driven economy will be what they choose to do with the time they get back. Organisations that reinvest these gains into creativity, customer experience, research, and strategic initiatives will pull ahead.
Industry leaders like EY, Carvana, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia are already capitalising on agentic impact–achieving productivity leaps and positioning themselves at the forefront of their sectors. And India can do the same. We have the world’s second largest developer population, globally established enterprises, a thriving startup ecosystem, and proven ability to scale solutions for billions of users. And now, early access to transformative AI agents.
India’s moment to lead
The companies that act now–from Bengaluru’s tech corridors to emerging innovation hubs–won’t just transform their own businesses, they’ll establish India as the global standard for AI-powered software development.
This is India’s opportunity to lead as the world’s innovation engine. The technology is here, the talent is ready, and the market opportunity is massive, so now’s the time for India to turn potential into global impact.
The writer is Director, Enterprise India, at GitHub.
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