India's Daily Multimodal AI Use To Nearly Double To 43% By 2030: Ericsson Report

New Delhi: Daily use of multimodal artificial intelligence (AI) in India is expected to nearly double to 43 per cent by 2030 from 22 per cent at present, according to a new Ericsson ConsumerLab report based on a survey.

Notably, the projected level for India is higher than the global estimate of 30 per cent, up from 10 per cent now, the report said.

Multimodal AI use covers text, voice, images and video.

The findings point to a shift from occasional AI interactions to more frequent use across devices and locations, creating new demands on mobile networks, it said.

As consumers use AI on the move and share more images, video and voice with AI services, network traffic is expected to become more upload-heavy and unevenly distributed, increasing the importance of network responsiveness and uplink capacity.

"AI is becoming an integral part of how consumers search, create and communicate today. As AI becomes more multimodal and mobile, consumers will expect these experiences to work reliably across devices and wherever they are," Nitin Bansal, Managing Director, Ericsson India said.

India's strong digital foundation provides an opportunity to support this next phase of AI adoption, he said. "High-performing networks will be important to delivering the responsiveness, capacity and reliability that emerging AI experiences will require," he added.

Globally, AI "super users" account for around 10 per cent of consumers at present, but are expected to make up 30 per cent by 2030 and generate over 80 per cent of all AI activity. For such users, response time has 2.5 times the influence on network satisfaction compared with average users.

By 2030, daily multimodal AI use, multi-device AI use and the number of on-the-go locations where AI is used are all expected to triple globally.

The report also pointed to the rise of agentic AI, which can carry out tasks such as making bookings, comparing products or managing schedules for users. Across surveyed markets, 38 per cent of smartphone users expect to use agentic AI by 2030, against four per cent now, and expect it to save about an hour of screen time daily.

More than half of daily AI users are strongly concerned about fake or hacked AI assistants, and communications service providers were ranked the most trusted for verifying the identities of such assistants.

The report is based on responses from over 43,000 smartphone users aged 15-69 across 27 markets, including India.