A study by Analytics India Magazine in collaboration with the online learning platform for working professionals, Great Learning, reveals that among the Indian cities, Mumbai pays artificial intelligence (AI) professionals the most, at Rs 15.6 lakhs per year. Bengaluru comes in a close second offering its AI professionals Rs 14.5 lakh annually. Chennai pays the least, at Rs 10.4 lakh.
The study also reveals that approx. 57 per cent of companies seeking candidates to fill artificial intelligence (AI) related vacancies are demanding more than five years of experience, whereas the average AI experience of Indian professionals is hardly three years.
The AI sector has seen a growth of nearly 30 per cent in 2017-18, to $230 million. But clearly there is a dearth of experienced and qualified AI talent in India, as more than 4,000 mid and senior-level posts are lying vacant in the artificial intelligence sector. These posts have been lying vacant for a year.
This is indicative of the fact that there are opportunities out there for mid and senior-level AI professinals across sectors, such as IT, finance, healthcare and e-commerce.
The study also reveals that the median salary of AI professionals in the country is Rs 14.3 lakh across experience and skill levels. Almost 40 per cent of AI professionals receive a remuneration of a minimum of Rs six lakhs at the entry level, whereas four per cent get at least Rs 50 lakh, and the trend is only improving.
IBM, Accenture, Amazon, Fractal Analytics, Societe Generale, SAP Labs, 24/7 Customer, Atos, Nvidia and Tech Mahindra, are the ten companies with the highest demand for AI professionals, with skills in machine learning, natural- language processing, neural networks, analytics, cloud computing and pattern recognition.
