1. AI-driven productivity improvements form the foundation for larger-scale business impact

Indian and multinational enterprises have already gained major productivity improvements with AI, from solving customer problems 33% faster to halving the time taken for back-end service functions. These efficiency dividends represent only a fraction of AI’s potential – but they play a critical role for leaders looking to achieve much more ambitious enterprise transformation.

Firstly, productivity and efficiency improvements offer tangible and relatively fast ROI, helping leaders justify AI adoption and advocate for larger-scale investment. Second, they free up time for employees and leaders to focus on more complex challenges, allowing more Indian enterprises to shift into areas with higher value-add. Finally, they help enterprises earn trust in AI from customers and employees alike, making it easier to gain buy-in from these groups for more transformative AI projects later on.

2. AI’s next “hot spot” is employee engagement and culture

At the event, leaders heard repeatedly how AI can change not just operations but entire organizational culture. One speaker shared how AI adoption led to much more widespread use of data in decision-making within their organization. Another noted that AI had empowered frontline staff to take much more confident, well-informed actions to assist customers. There was widespread agreement that AI would deliver the greatest yields by supercharging employees and teams to do their best work, whether by automating more laborious tasks or informing more strategic or creative decisions.

How can leaders use AI to create more agile and effective workforces? One speaker highlighted the importance of establishing a continuous learning culture where employees’ skills mature in tandem with AI use. Others noted the value of replacing hierarchical structures with flatter ones that allow employees the autonomy to make decisions and even create with AI. Such discussions also underscored the growing need to involve CHROs in the AI adoption process: while HR has lagged on benefiting from AI in Asia Pacific, Indian enterprise leaders appear increasingly aware of the crucial link between technology and talent when making AI-related investments.

3. Business reinvention requires hands-on leadership

Event attendees heard that according to ServiceNow’s Enterprise AI Maturity Index, most Indian enterprises have yet to truly transform their business models with AI. These transformations could include optimizing the entire customer journey, from predicting customer issues to embedding data-driven empathy in every touchpoint; or using AI platforms to scale into new geographies at speed, allowing Indian businesses to surpass domestic limits on growth while maintaining consistent quality of service.

The key ingredient to reinvention is active leadership. Attendees also learnt that when leaders devise a clear shared vision for AI and get hands-on in its implementation, their enterprises tend to see benefits across all common measures of business performance. That creates a clear case for leaders to not only develop AI-related skills, but also focus on how they collaborate with and gain buy-in from different stakeholders like customers, employees, and boards.

4. Growing returns come with greater responsibility

AI’s ethical and regulatory considerations underscored just about every conversation at the Executive Circle forum. For many, India’s tightening data privacy regulations were top of mind, prompting some speakers to identify ethical AI competencies as a key competitive advantage for the future. Other panelists pointed to the correlation between transparency and trust as a vital factor for all layers of AI adoption.

Most discussions concluded that ethical AI was not a “problem without a solution”. Some speakers noted the growing number of scalable AI models for enterprise, including those from ServiceNow and NVIDIA, come with data controls and ethical operations “baked in” – ensuring integrity even when adapted across different industries or use cases. Others stressed the importance of “human in the loop” design in not only ensuring the fidelity of AI outputs, but also mitigating adverse impacts that AI might have on the broader workforce. For India’s enterprise leaders, scaling the AI maturity curve will depend on the strength and reliability of their ethical and compliance practices, not just in the boardroom but at every level of work.