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Envision this: A ServiceNow ticket arrives at a big bank, and 50 customers can't log into their accounts. All the dashboards show a red indicator. About 60 to 100 people end up in a war-room meeting and remain there for about two hours. They discover the problem was a slow SQL query in a database ten hops down the stack, a system neither the login team nor their monitoring system had originally identified. That is the situation which Anish Agarwal, CEO of Traversal, alludes to when explaining why incident response is becoming more difficult and why he believes the solution must be designed differently from the observability tools that most enterprises currently operate. In the recent episode of the Tech Transformed podcast, Dan Twing, President and COO of Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), sat down with Agarwal, also a professor at Columbia University. They discuss how code laid out by artificial intelligence (AI) is affecting production incidents. They also talk about what is needed to trace symptoms back to their causes within a portfolio of 5,000 applications, and how businesses decide when to switch from using AI suggestions to adopting autonomous remediation. In terms of reliability, Agarwal says that the enterprise has to question whether the task was not just initiated but completed. However, it's also possible for a job to finish, yet the answer might not be the one you want. Key Takeaways"Did it run?" no longer proves an AI-built system worked.Coding agents are trained on compile-and-run, so they can sideline the real goal.Same configuration, three runs, three different results.Engineers now write specs; agents write code, so code comprehension drops.Testing improves, but failures still happen at the seams between systems.Agents need to search far more data than dashboards were built for.Traversal's production world model maps entities, connections and live telemetry.Customers are using it to validate CMDBs, which was unplanned.Causal analysis separates upstream and downstream anomalies from spurious ones.Multiple paths converging on one cause builds confidence in a root cause.L4 cut a war room from 60–100 people to five to 10.Reported MTTR fell from two or three hours to 20–30 minutes.Coding agents now call Traversal's MCP to write production-aware code.Decide up front when to build in-house versus buy. Chapters00:00 Introduction to Hybrid Cloud Challenges02:53 The Role of AI in Production Systems06:34 Complexity of Troubleshooting in AI Systems12:03 Causal Analysis in Production Environments18:03 Agentic Systems and Human Collaboration22:56 Framework for Agentic Readiness in Reliability27:03 Future of Self-Driving Production29:55 Practical Steps for Tech Leaders Visit traversal.com. agentic SRE, self-driving production, site reliability engineering, AI SRE, AI incident response, root cause analysis, causal AI, MTTR, mean time to resolution, production world model, CMDB, CMDB validation, ServiceNow, observability, AIOps, incident management, Traversal, Anish Agarwal, Dan Twing, Tech Transformed, EM360Tech, Enterprise Management 360, AI-generated code, coding agents, DevOps, enterprise IT

“Vibe coding is already present in your company,” according to David Hsu, CEO of Retool and governance is the only way to secure it. Let's put this into context. Think of a Fortune 500 company’s CIO who has recently come across a vibe-coded application spotted on the public internet. This app was developed by an employee of the Fortune 500 company in question. The developer obtained a data dump from Salesforce pertaining to customers, then fed this data to an external AI tool not part of the company’s set of AI tools. The employee prompted the tool to host the resulting application on a public URL. Since it was an external AI tool, a security review couldn’t be carried out, nor could the IT department view it. Without any internal visibility into a tool created by the employee, the actual customer data was live on the open web. It’s a scary situation, a breach of trust, so imagine the CIO’s wrath upon seeing it. This is why, in the recent episode of the Tech Transformed podcast, host Shubhangi Dua, Podcast Producer and B2B Tech Journalist at EM360Tech, sat down for a conversation with David Hsu, CEO and Founder of Retool. They talk about the repercussions of vibe coding in addition to examining why most enterprises have no conception of how much of it is already taking place within their own enterprise. The discussion then turns from the immediate issue of governance concerning uncontrolled AI app-building to Hsu's prediction that software engineering as a profession could vanish within two to three years. “All the CIOs that I speak to are genuinely frightened about vibe coding, and even if you don't want to admit it, vibe coding is already present in your company,” he tells Dua. This is partly why Hsu founded Retool. Retool secures vibe coding for enterprises. Hsu explains that Retool can be connected to a company’s Snowflake database, for instance or their Databricks data lake. “Users should be able to have access to particular tables only,” he says. Access controls are required at the group level. “If you're in this particular Okta group, you can only access this table, and it's read-only. Whereas if you're in this other Okta group, you can actually write back to this other Salesforce over here." So one Okta group could be granted read-only access to a particular table, while another group might be given write access to a connected Salesforce instance. All applications that are built on top of that connection automatically inherit the same restrictions. Once rules of such a nature are put in place, people could then be set free, explaining why he views governance as something that enables freedom rather than something that restricts. TakeawaysVibe coding is already happening inside most enterprises, sanctioned or notA Fortune 500 CIO found a vibe-coded app exposed on the public internetOne customer's AI coding spend hit 30x their original budget estimateTwo employees independently built duplicate apps that returned different numbersHsu forecasts fully automated coding arriving by late 2027 or early 2028By 2030, Hsu estimates 90% of company work will be done by AI employeesThe CIO's future role: a "chief people officer" governing AI agents, not humans Chapters00:00 The Rise of No-Code and Low-Code Development 04:52 Governance in the Age of Rapid Development 12:40 Centralisation and Control in Software Development 20:04 The Future of Software Engineering and AI 25:13 The Role of Humans in an AI-Driven World vibe coding, AI governance, enterprise AI, CIO, AI agents, software engineering, Retool, David Hsu, enterprise software, AI security

AI is reshaping how businesses interact with customers, from handling routine enquiries to delivering more personalised and responsive experiences. As organisations automate more of the customer journey, however, customer support is increasingly being reconsidered not simply as a cost to reduce, but as an important part of how businesses build lasting relationships with their customers. On this episode of Tech Transformed, host Christina Stathopoulos welcomed back Pranay Jain, CEO and co-founder of Enterprise Bot, to discuss what this shift means in practice. The conversation moves beyond the usual AI hype to consider how businesses can scale automation without losing meaningful human connection, while navigating growing regulatory expectations across Europe and the UK. Jain has been building EnterpriseBot for almost a decade, since, as he puts it, "artificial intelligence was more artificial than intelligent." This vantage point shapes a conversation that's less about what AI can do and more about how enterprises should think about doing it. Stop Treating AI as a Cost-Cutting ToolJain sees AI as an opportunity to rethink how customer service teams work, using automation to handle routine tasks while giving people more time to focus on interactions where human judgement and empathy matter most. Password resets, invoice lookups and basic status checks can be handled instantly by AI, allowing human agents to spend more time with customers during moments that require greater care, such as a major life event or an insurance claim following an accident. He points to IKEA as a real-world example of this working. Rather than laying off staff as AI took over routine tasks, the company retrained employees to help customers plan their homes in a more personal, consultative way and saw sales increase as a result. It's a useful reframe that automation isn't about removing people from the equation; it's about repositioning them where their judgment and empathy are still needed. Jain also flags a metric that trips up a lot of contact centres, which is average handling time. Teams are often rewarded for keeping calls short, but a one-minute call with a 40 per cent resolution rate is worse than a three-minute call that actually solves the problem. His recommendation is to automate the parts of a call that eat time without adding value - identity verification alone can consume up to a quarter of a call, so agents can spend the time they save on getting things resolved properly, not just quickly. Why AI Needs GuardrailsGiven EnterpriseBot’s European roots, regulation naturally comes into the conversation. Jain explains how the EU AI Act, Spain’s new customer service rules and the UK’s FCA expectations are starting to shape what “autonomous” really means in practice. For example, businesses can track sentiment at a general level, but analysing an agent’s tone of voice or emotions crosses into much more sensitive territory. The same applies to financial transactions. An AI agent can’t simply be left to make those decisions on its own. There needs to be a clear workflow and defined controls around what it can and cannot do. His concern is that a lot of the AI tooling on the market is built with a US-first lens and simply wasn't designed with these boundaries in mind. This creates real exposure for enterprises that adopt a slick-looking solution without checking if it can actually operate within EU or UK rules. Jain sees these regulatory changes as a positive step, particularly as AI becomes more embedded in customer interactions. "I actually think it's very important that you do have the right regulation, and there's a very good reason why these things are there." This point extends into data sovereignty too. With geopolitical tension pushing some organisations to reconsider public cloud dependence, Jain suggests flexibility- the ability to run on-prem, in a private cloud, or across different regions depending on the customer; this is becoming one of the more undervalued priorities on a CIO's list. Connected Customer Experience With AIThe conversation closes on something every customer feels but rarely thinks about, which is the disjointedness of switching between voice, chat, email, and messaging with the same company. Jain's push is for a single AI agent that carries context across every channel and every language. He uses his own background in Switzerland, a country with four national languages, to illustrate the scale of the problem. Without a unified system, a company could end up managing a dozen separate AI agents just to cover language and channel combinations. His final advice focuses on what enterprise leaders can put into practice now. Start by actually listening to your customer data to figure out where automation adds value and where human time matters most. Then be honest about whether building AI in-house is really core to your business, or if it's a distraction from what you're actually good at. As he notes, insurance companies aren't in the business of building voice agents and trying to keep pace with shifting regulation on your own is an expensive, ongoing commitment few teams are set up for. Jain’s perspective is his focus on making AI useful rather than simply more autonomous. His approach puts the customer experience first, while recognising that trust, human judgment and the right guardrails still matter. For businesses considering what comes next, that balance may be the difference between adopting AI for the sake of it and using it to create a better customer experience. If you would like to learn more, visit enterprisebot.ai or connect with Pranay Jain on LinkedIn. TakeawaysThe shift from cost centre to strategic asset in customer support.How AI can augment human agents and improve emotional connection.Regulatory challenges and compliance in AI deployment.Data sovereignty and AI sovereignty considerations.Building connected, multi-channel customer experiences.The importance of governance and safeguards in AI systems. Chapters00:00 Introduction to autonomous customer experience and guest Pranay Jain 01:55 Transforming customer support from a cost centre to a strategic asset 02:54 Using AI to handle mundane tasks and enhance human agent capabilities 04:53 Balancing automation with human connection in customer journeys 05:58 Analysing customer journeys to identify emotional impact areas 06:52 Automating verification and wrap-up to improve efficiency 07:55 Regulatory landscape: EU AI Act, UK FCA, and Spain's requirements 08:54 Compliance challenges and designing regulation-friendly AI solutions 10:53 Data sovereignty, data security, and flexible deployment models 13:09 Creating a seamless, multi-channel customer experience 14:09 Ensuring connected AI interactions across voice, chat, and email 15:10 The importance of multilingual AI agents for global support 23:09 Final advice for enterprise leaders: customer-centric, compliant, and scalable AI strategies

For years, voice has been the channel most enterprises have quietly dreaded. The reason stems from it being harder to automate than chat. It's also harder to scale across markets, and far less forgiving if the experience is clumsy. Yet according to Pranay Jain, CEO and Co-founder of Enterprise Bot, that reluctance is exactly why so many businesses are still losing customers to frustrating IVR menus while their competitors move ahead with something smarter. In a recent episode of Tech Transformed, Jain sat down with Trisha Pillay to explore the changing role of voice AI in customer service. Together they unpacked the technological advances making it possible, right to the practical strategies businesses need to use it effectively. Jain, who built Enterprise Bot alongside his wife and co-founder after a detour through real estate, explained where agentic voice AI is heading and why treating it as a bolt-on to existing digital channels is a mistake. He pointed out that voice was never really solved; businesses simply learned to live with its limitations. As conversational AI becomes better at understanding intent, maintaining context and taking action rather than reciting scripted responses, the calculus for enterprise AI deployment is now changing. Why Voice Still Carries the BusinessThe figures Jain cites indicate the shift is already underway. In much of Europe, somewhere between 60 and 80 per cent of customer requests still arrive by phone, while chat accounts for a sliver of total contact centre volume in markets like Switzerland. This may surprise people who think digital channels have already taken over. They haven't, especially when customers have complex or urgent problems to be attended to. Jain explains that customers choose their channel based on how important or difficult their issue is. A quick balance check or a password reset happens over chat or an app. But when something feels uncertain, urgent, or emotionally loaded, people still reach for the phone. They want to be heard, not routed through a flowchart. That's why a robotic voice bot can be more damaging than a mediocre chatbot. Customers often turn to voice when they want a more personal interaction, so a cold or scripted response can make them feel ignored and not valued rather than helped. This is also where the case for treating voice, chat, and email as one connected system rather than separate builds becomes obvious. Jain described meeting a client running a twenty-person team just to maintain their AI stack while only ten people handled actual customer service. This was a sign that channel-by-channel and language-by-language builds spiral out of control fast. A single underlying AI that can operate consistently across languages and touchpoints isn't a nice-to-have, in his view; it's the only version of enterprise AI that scales without collapsing under its own maintenance burden. Voice AI’s Real Value Jain says that the interesting thing about voice AI is not just that it sounds natural but what it can actually do. Most companies just use voice AI to answer questions. Jain says that about 80 per cent of customer calls are about transactions, not just information. Customers don't call just to ask questions; they call to get something done, like a refund or a change to their account. Enterprise Bots work with Generali Switzerland to show the difference between answering questions and actually resolving issues. When the AI could complete transactions on its own, customer satisfaction went up. When the AI couldn't complete transactions, it was still helpful by directing customers to the right person, which saved time and improved accuracy Scaling AI Starts With Governance Jain warns that none of this works without taking compliance and data privacy seriously. Companies in services have to follow rules about where they can use generative AI. The EU has rules about what data can be processed and how, and some things, like sentiment tracking, are allowed in some places but not others. Adding in industry rules, the technical build is secondary to getting the governance right. Language is another challenge. Building a system for the US market might mean supporting English and Spanish. Building for Switzerland means supporting four national languages, plus dialects and regional variants. Jain says that many companies fail because they can build a demo that works in one language but can't make it work in real-world conditions. His advice for companies considering AI is to start with a pilot, involve IT and security from the beginning and make sure the technology is solving a real business problem. Jain says that successful AI adoption is not about using the advanced technology but about showing that it can deliver real value before scaling it up. If you would like to find out more about this, visit enterprisebot.ai or follow Pranay Jain on LinkedIn. TakeawaysThe importance of voice AI in customer interactions.Multilingual and multi-channel AI support.Regulatory and data privacy challenges.Transactional vs informational AI use cases.Real-world deployment success stories.Technical considerations for scalable AI.Customer experience and emotional engagement.Future trends in voice AI technology. Chapters00:00 Introduction to Voice AI and Its Growing Importance 02:57 Why Voice Remains a Key Customer Channel 04:46 The Evolution of Voice AI and Emotional Understanding 07:20 The Role of Voice in Multilingual Europe 09:22 From Answering Questions to Taking Action 11:01 ROI and Business Impact of Voice AI 12:14 Key Factors in Choosing AI Solutions 14:28 Real-World Customer Success with Generali Switzerland 18:04 Handling Multilingual and Dialectal Variations 21:00 Regulatory and Security Considerations 23:42 Common Mistakes and Best Practices in AI Governance

The fact that OpenAI has quickly adopted Temporal, a rapidly expanding AI ecosystem, and has even entered into a partnership with Crystal Palace FC shows that its business strategy is to pursue community-first innovation. For years, tech enterprises competed against each other on the grounds of innovative features. However, the competition has changed recently. Now the winners are those who build communities. In the recent episode of the Tech Transformed podcast, host Christina Stathopoulos, Founder of Dare to Data, is joined by Melissa Herrera, Senior Developer Advocate at Temporal, and Les Jackson, Staff Developer Advocate, to discuss the pivotal role of the community in technology. They further explore how Temporal's open-source philosophy fosters developer engagement, the impact of community feedback on product development, and the significance of partnerships, such as with OpenAI and Crystal Palace. The conversation emphasises the importance of authentic community relationships and the future direction of Temporal, highlighting the need for continuous integration and collaboration with developers. TakeawaysCommunity is a central part of Temporal's growth.Temporal's philosophy is rooted in open-source software.In-person community interactions are invaluable for developers.Feedback from the community directly shapes product direction.OpenAI's adoption of Temporal led to significant scaling.Partnerships should focus on community engagement, not just transactions.Temporal's collaboration with Crystal Palace merges tech and sports communities.Investing in community fosters trust and collaboration.Continuous integration with developer tools is essential for success.Authentic community relationships drive technology innovation. Chapters00:00 Introduction to Tech Transformed Podcast 02:45 The Importance of Community in Technology 05:13 Feedback from Developers: Shaping Product Direction 07:51 OpenAI's Adoption of Temporal: A Case Study 10:02 Unique Partnerships: Temporal and Crystal Palace 15:12 Looking Ahead: Future of Temporal and Community Engagement 19:38 Final Thoughts: Investing in Community Temporal, Enterprise AI, Developer Communities, Developer Advocacy, Open Source, OpenAI, AI Agents, AI Infrastructure, Durable Execution, AI Orchestration, Enterprise Software, Developer Experience, AI Workflows, AI Adoption, Community Led Growth, Developer Led Growth, Temporal SDK, Software Engineering, AI Engineering, Enterprise Technology, Crystal Palace, Tech Transformed

In this day and age, there is probably no meeting or conversation in the tech world that doesn't concentrate on how artificial intelligence (AI) can improve the work streams of organisations worldwide. There will definitely be a moment in almost every AI strategy meeting where someone says, "We need agents." In this episode of Tech Transformed, Sara Maldon unpacks with host Christina Stathopoulos how she has heard this sentence countless times. As the head of AI and automation at Make, she's learned to treat that sentence as a starting point because most of the time, the business problem sitting underneath it doesn't actually need an agent at all. This conversation is less about hype and more about when a workflow needs autonomy, and when a simple if-this-then-that rule is doing the job just fine. Maldon's answer comes from two and a half years of running AI transformation inside a company that was automating things long before "agentic" became a buzzword. Where Agentic AI Fits on the Automation SpectrumOn the other end of the spectrum is agentic AI. Rather than following a fixed sequence of instructions, it gives an LLM a goal, the right tools, and enough context to decide for itself what needs to happen next. Maldon points to a simple example. A car-leasing company needed product images pulled automatically from manufacturers' websites. A traditional scraper did the job well enough until BMW redesigned its website. Overnight, the automation failed because the image had moved. "An agent doesn't care where the picture is on the page," she explains. "It just knows it needs to get the BMW photo." This indicates that Agentic AI isn't valuable because it's more "intelligent"; it's beneficial because it can adapt when the environment changes instead of breaking down the moment something shifts. Even Make's own AI sales agent isn't fully autonomous. It's deployed across 60 sales representatives, but, as Maldon points out, it's "95 per cent deterministic." Most of the workflow still follows predefined rules. The agent steps in only when a judgment call is needed, deciding a conversation should be escalated, followed up by email, or moved into a Slack channel. The plumbing remains deterministic because the agent simply adds decision-making where it creates the most value. Building With AIMaldon believes the people best equipped to build workflows are those who understand the business firsthand. Operations teams, customer success, marketing, and other business users see where processes slow down because they work with them every day. She knows this because she has been through the same journey herself. Before leading AI and automation at Make, she trained as a lawyer, not a developer. Today, she describes herself as one of the company's most active builders. For Maldon, technical expertise isn't the defining quality. Domain knowledge comes first, followed by an instinct for improving processes, a desire to solve problems for other people, and enough curiosity and persistence to keep experimenting until something works. This philosophy shapes how Make develops automation internally. Employees rarely begin inside the automation platform itself. Instead, they sketch ideas in Claude, using it to think through the workflow and refine the logic. If an automation proves useful beyond one or two people, the AI team then helps turn that prototype into something production-ready using AI co-worker, Maia by Make. Starting from scratch is becoming the exception rather than the rule. The first draft already exists; the job is to refine, test, and scale it. Scaling Automation Across the BusinessHere's the part leaders don't want to hear: the hard part isn't the AI. It's everything around it. Maldon points to Make's sales agent again, the one handling escalations, follow-ups, and CRM updates after every call. Building the agent itself took two days. Planning and mapping the deterministic pipeline around it took four weeks. Rolling it out to 60 people, with training, feedback loops, and adoption? Four months. Patience, she believes, is the least-discussed skill in AI transformation and maybe the most necessary. Not because the technology is slow, but because people aren't robots; they need time to trust a new process before they'll actually use it. The HR team's onboarding redesign makes the point without needing sales numbers to prove it (though the numbers help - a 10 per cent lift in AI adoption from something as small as a personalised pre-start video). Ninety-six per cent of Make's employees now run an AI agent they built themselves. Not because leadership mandated it, but the tools got low enough friction, and the culture rewarded people for trying. Maldon's advice to leaders stalling on where to start is to stop assessing tools and pick one. Run a hackathon or set aside an afternoon to experiment for a small section of your enterprise. The market moves faster than any evaluation process can keep up with anyway, so get a foot in the door, then figure out the rest as you go. If you would like to find out more, visit make.com or follow Sara Maldon on LinkedIn. TakeawaysOrganisations should start small and iterate quickly with AI projects.Building a culture of builders and curiosity accelerates AI adoption.Patience and soft skills are crucial for scaling automation.Agentic AI allows for more flexible and resilient workflows.Empowering non-technical teams to build with AI democratises innovation. Chapters00:00 Introduction to AI transformation and automation at Make 00:57 Meet Sara Maldon and her role at Make 01:59 Understanding the spectrum: deterministic vs agentic AI 02:52 The agentic spectrum and real-world examples 07:04 Building automation in the age of AI 09:54 The rise of builders: no-code and operational roles 12:02 Scaling automation across organisations 16:13 Customer success story 18:58 How Make uses AI internally to innovate 22:01 Advice for leaders starting with AI and automation 24:04 Conclusion and key takeaways from the episode

Every enterprise leader has heard the numbers by now as billions poured into licences, seats and tokens, with productivity gains still trailing well behind the promise. On a recent episode of Tech Transformed, host Christina Stathopoulos sat down with Jay Richman, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Multiverse, to unpack why so many organisations remain stuck in what he calls "tinker mode" and what it actually takes to move past it. Richman's view is shaped by a career spent at the sharp end of three separate technology shifts. A decade at Spotify saw him build out the company's advertising business and early subscription platform from scratch. Roughly four years at Amazon followed, working on agentic AI systems within the advertising division, effectively rebuilding the old-fashioned creative agency model using specialised generative media tools. Four months ago, he relocated from New York to London to join Multiverse, drawn by a mission he sees as almost the reverse of his previous work. Rather than using people to make machines smarter, the task now is training machines to make people smarter. That framing sits at the centre of this conversation. The AI Adoption GapRichman suggests that the widely reported gap between AI spend and AI-driven output isn't really a technology failure; it's a human one. Tools sit unused, licences go unopened, and organisations struggle to move employees from curious onlookers to confident, habitual users. Multiverse's answer is what it calls the "adoption layer", which is a diagnostic approach that pinpoints where skill gaps actually sit across a workforce, builds tailored learning paths around them, then embeds coaching directly inside the tools people already use, whether that's Claude, Gemini or ChatGPT. Crucially, Richman distinguishes between what he wryly terms "token maxing" and value creation. Blunt incentives, leaderboards, usage dashboards and mandates to switch from manual coding to AI-assisted development. All this can help people over that first hurdle, and he admits to having used some of these tactics himself. But the real measure of success has to be defined customer by customer, tied to a specific business outcome, not simply how many prompts someone fired off in a week. As he puts it, the value of any given AI initiative can only be judged against what that particular organisation set out to solve in the first place. Human Skills AI Can't ReplaceOne of the most interesting parts of the discussion explores how generative and agentic AI are reshaping team structures. Richman describes a flattening of traditional boundaries: product managers writing code, designers contributing to technical documents, and engineers drafting strategy papers. Functions that were once tightly specialised, such as a dedicated user-research team and a standalone copywriting role, are increasingly being absorbed as skills within more generalist, multi-hatted employees. At the same time, he notes, the opposite is happening at the model layer, with AI agents becoming ever more specialised. The result, in his telling, is smaller teams working with far greater autonomy and considerably less coordination overhead than in years past. Asked what he prioritises when hiring now, Richman is candid that mastery of a single discipline matters to him less than certain behavioural traits: curiosity, high agency, sound judgment. He shares an interview technique he relies on, asking candidates how they spent their time during the pandemic lockdowns, as a rough proxy for whether someone tends to seize initiative or simply wait for circumstances to dictate their next move. Moving Fast Without Cutting CornersOn responsible deployment, Richman insists culture has to start at the top. Leaders, he argues, need to be visibly hands-on and honest about their own gaps in knowledge rather than issuing mandates from a distance. At Multiverse, that meant lifting caps on AI coding tools, resetting the expectation that new work should be AI-generated by default, and investing heavily in quality assurance and evaluation frameworks so that human reviewers still hold a meaningful checkpoint before anything reaches customers. He contrasts this with the slower, more cautious approach he sees at many other organisations — one he believes is not only less efficient but also less likely to stick once the initial push fades. Measuring What Actually MattersTying this back to the earlier point about value over volume, Richman suggests the real test of an AI initiative is how closely it maps to a business's own stated objective, not adoption figures in isolation. That means starting with what a customer or team is actually trying to achieve, building learning around the specific gaps standing in the way, and only then judging success by whether the resulting behaviour change shows up in the metrics that organisation already cares about. The conversation closes on a personal note, with Richman sharing the advice he'd give his own children as they weigh careers in a fast-shifting landscape: run towards disruption rather than away from it. Having entered the workforce at the tail end of the dot-com boom, he sees clear parallels with the present moment, a period, in his words, where nobody can credibly claim expertise, which makes it as good a time as any to jump in. For organisations still puzzling over why their AI investment hasn't translated into measurable returns, Richman's message is simple: the technology was never really the difficult part. If you would like to find out more, please visit multiverse.io or connect with Richman on LinkedIn. TakeawaysSuccessful AI adoption hinges on people, not just technology.The AI adoption layer helps bridge the gap between investment and productivity.High agency and curiosity are key traits of successful AI practitioners.Leadership must lead by example and foster a culture of experimentation.Rapid technological change requires teams to be flexible and multi-skilled. Chapters00:00 Introduction to AI transformation and people-centred approach 00:54 Jay Richman's background at Spotify, Amazon, and Multiverse 03:47 The challenge of AI adoption and pilot mode 07:04 The concept of the AI adoption layer and its purpose 12:54 Distinguishing token maxing from value maxing 16:03 Impact of generative AI on product and engineering teams 19:09 Building teams in the AI era: blurring roles and skills 21:49 Qualities and skills for future AI teams 25:49 Leading responsibly with AI and fostering a culture of experimentation

Artificial intelligence has spent the last several years getting smarter on screens, recommending what to watch, drafting what to write, answering what we ask. This type of progress is now spilling out into the physical world, where machines are starting to move, sense, and adapt on their own. In this episode of Tech Transformed, host John Santaferraro, Founder and Analyst at Ferraro Consulting, talks with Prith Banerjee, Senior Vice President of Innovation at Synopsys, about what happens when AI has to obey the laws of physics instead of just the patterns in a dataset. Banerjee brings a rare vantage point to the conversation. Before Synopsys, he led HP Labs worldwide, served as group CTO at ABB and Schneider Electric, and ran engineering simulation software company ANSYS as CTO until its acquisition by Synopsys roughly a year ago - a deal that now anchors much of what he describes as Synopsys's "silicon to systems" strategy. The Road to Physical AIBanerjee traces AI's progress through distinct phases he's tracked across his career. It started with analytics, which was the correlation engines behind a Netflix recommendation, or the placement and routing improvements Synopsys has long applied inside its own chip design tools. Generative AI came next, giving machines the ability to produce original language, images, and video from a prompt rather than just surface existing content. Agentic AI followed close behind, handing off entire tasks, drafting a slide deck, prepping a sales call to systems that act more like assistants than tools. Physical AI is the phase Banerjee sees unfolding now, and it's a different kind of leap. Instead of learning from words or pixels, these systems learn from real physical measurements: pressure, temperature, stress, and strain. Training that kind of intelligence takes synthetic data generated across structural, fluid, and electromagnetic physics precisely the simulation capability ANSYS brought into Synopsys. Teaching Robots to Learn Like HumansThe shift shows up clearly in how robots are built today. A decade ago, getting a robotic arm to pick up a bottle without crushing it meant writing enormous programs, sometimes 100,000 lines of code specifying exactly how each motor should move. Physical AI throws that playbook out. Banerjee compares it to teaching a child to ride a bike: nobody narrates which pedal to push. The child watches, tries, falls, and adjusts. Robots now learn the same way, refining their behaviour through reward and penalty as they attempt a task thousands of times. Autonomous vehicles follow the identical pattern at far greater scale, learning from millions of hours of driving footage until they recognise, for instance, that a pedestrian stepping into the street means stop. Synopsys works with autonomous vehicle and robotics companies to generate the synthetic training data that makes this kind of learning possible without requiring endless real-world testing. Engineering the Intelligent Systems of TomorrowThat intelligence has to run on something, and the conversation turns to what it takes to build the silicon underneath it. Chips that once held a few hundred thousand transistors now carry tens or hundreds of billions, some approaching trillions, stacked using advanced 3D and chiplet techniques. Designing them means balancing power, performance, and thermal limits simultaneously rather than simply over-engineering for safety margin, which Banerjee calls co-design. Synopsys is tackling that complexity with what it calls agent engineers. AI systems introduced at its Converge conference that work alongside human chip designers on tasks like RTL design, test benches, and sign-off, effectively multiplying engineering capacity without multiplying headcount. The same pressure shows up at the edge, where trained AI models have to run inside a drone, car, or warehouse robot on a fraction of the power a data centre would use, with no room for cloud latency. Banerjee shares his perspective on why many AI projects struggle. He argues that the real challenge lies in balancing innovation with trust: robots operating alongside people raise questions of safety and collaboration, while autonomous systems connected to networks demand security, traceability, and clear explanations for the decisions they make. His advice to engineering leaders is to treat this shift as organisation-wide rather than a single team's problem, from legal and marketing functions already using agentic tools to engineering teams rethinking how code gets written. The goal, as he puts it, isn't replacing people but making them capable of far more than they could manage alone. If you would find out more about this, visit Synopsys or follow Prith Banerjee on LinkedIn. TakeawaysEvolution of AI from analytics to physical AI.Role of synthetic data in training physical AI.How robots learn through physical interactions.Complexity and innovation in chip design.Agentic AI and its applications in engineering.Challenges of edge AI in autonomous systems.Security, governance, and safety in physical AI. Chapters00:00 Introduction to AI's Evolution and Physical AI 01:15 Prith Banerjee's Career Journey and Role at Synopsys 04:19 The Phases of AI: Analytics, Generative, and Agentic 07:55 What is Physical AI and How It Learns from the Physical World 09:23 Robotics and Autonomous Learning Through Physical AI 19:41 Impact of AI on Chip Design and Complex Systems 23:29 Design Challenges of Complex, AI-Driven Chips 26:57 Edge AI and Challenges in Autonomous Devices 28:09 Implications for Organisations and Future Investments

Most conversations about artificial intelligence eventually return to the same concerns: is it going to replace my job, disrupt, and create an uncertain future? But what if we are looking at AI through the wrong lens? On the latest episode of Tech Transformed, host Trisha Pillay sits down with Kevin Surace, an author, AI expert and technology pioneer who has spent three decades working on technologies that helped lay the foundations for products such as Siri and Alexa. His perspective is very different from the usual debate. Rather than viewing AI primarily as a threat to human work, Surace sees it as a tool that can expand what people are capable of achieving. This shift changes the conversation from what AI might replace to what it could make possible. The discussion explores how AI can help people work faster, tackle problems that were previously out of reach and spend more time on areas where human judgment, creativity and experience still matter. For Surace, the question is not whether AI will change the way we work. That change is already happening. The more important question is what we choose to do with the capabilities it puts in our hands. Silicon Valley Author and AI ExpertSurace holds 95 patents and is often credited as the father of the AI assistant. His work goes back to General Magic, an early-1990s Apple spinout where his team built the first digital agents and a programming language called Telescript. That early assistant technology had millions of users well before anyone was talking about chatbots. His upcoming book, The Joy Success Cycle, grew out of a question people kept asking him: Why does he seem to enjoy his work so much? The answer, he told Pillay, comes down to sequencing. Most people wait for success before they let themselves feel joy. Surace argues it works the other way. Joy has to come first, and success follows from it. How AI Brings JoySurace's favourite example is presentations. He used to spend a full week getting slides right, not because the ideas took that long to develop, but because formatting, alignment, and design details ate up all his time. Now he outlines what he wants to say, hands it to an AI tool, and gets a polished deck back within the hour. The lesson he draws from that isn't about speed for its own sake. It's about separating the parts of a job that actually bring satisfaction from the parts that never did. Moving a font two pixels to the left never gave anyone joy, he says. Delivering an idea to a room full of people can. AI, in his view, quietly removes the first category and leaves more room for the second. AI and the Case for More JobsSurace pushed back hard on the idea that AI shrinks the job market. He pointed to every major shift he's lived through from the PC, email, the smartphone, and the internet. Each one triggered the same fear, and each one ended up creating more roles than it eliminated. He sees the same pattern playing out with software development right now. Coders using AI tools are shipping features and fixing bugs far faster than before, and instead of trimming teams, many companies are hiring more developers to keep pace with the new demand their own speed has created. The job itself has changed. Writing code line by line matters less than guiding the output and checking it. But the need for people hasn't gone away. Rethinking Workflows With AIOne point Surace kept returning to was how companies get AI wrong when they try to automate their existing process instead of questioning why that process exists in the first place. He used car insurance claims as an example. The old approach sends an inspector to look at damage, fills out paperwork, and routes it through several people before a check gets issued. An AI-first approach skips most of that. A customer photographs the damage, uploads it, and a payment can go out the same day. This kind of redesign, he argues, is where the real gains sit. Businesses that only bolt AI onto old workflows will see modest improvements. Businesses willing to rebuild the workflow from scratch stand to cut costs dramatically and outpace competitors who don't. Cybersecurity in the Age of AIThe conversation also turned to security, an area where Surace runs a company building biometric authentication devices. He explained that attackers rarely bother breaking into networks directly anymore, since most data sits encrypted. Instead, they use AI to generate convincing phishing emails and fake login pages designed to trick people into handing over multi-factor authentication codes. Surace believes fingerprint-based verification is where things are headed, since voices and faces can now be convincingly faked, but a fingerprint can't. He expects verified-identity badges to become common online within the next few years, giving people a way to confirm they're actually talking to the person they think they are. What Leaders Should Do NowWhen asked what businesses should do now, Surace's advice was simple: get every employee using AI tools regularly, not occasionally. He compared it to the early days of the PC, when companies had to run training sessions just to get staff comfortable with word processors and spreadsheets. Adoption took time, but the alternative was falling behind. He sees AI the same way. Leaders who wait for their teams to come around on their own risk losing ground to competitors who move faster. If you would like to learn more, visit Kevin Surace's website or follow him on Linkedln. TakeawaysAI removes repetitive work so people can focus on higher-value tasks.Joy drives success in the AI era.AI will create new jobs by accelerating innovation.An AI-first culture is key to staying competitive.Biometric security will help counter AI-powered fraud Chapters00:00 Introduction to Kevin Surace and AI's Potential 01:52 Kevin's Journey and the Joy Success Cycle 04:14 AI as a Joy Maker in Daily Work 06:07 The Cycle: Joy Leads to Success 07:39 AI's Opportunity for Increased Jobs 12:15 Is AI a Technology Cycle or a Transformation? 13:50 The Ubiquity of Smartphones and AI's Role 14:39 Workforce Transformation and AI Adoption 23:06 Cybersecurity Challenges in the AI Era 26:55 Advice for CEOs and Leaders in an AI World

AI is changing the conversation around legacy modernisation, but successful transformation demands far more than powerful models and automated code generation. It requires engineering discipline, governance, and a clear-eyed view of where AI genuinely adds value and where it doesn't. On a recent episode of Tech Transformed, host Christina Stathopoulos, founder of Dare to Data, sat down with Shodhan Sheth, Enterprise Modernisation Platform and Cloud Lead, and Alessio Ferri, Lead Software Engineer, both part of Thoughtworks' Global Legacy Modernisation Service Development Team, to unpack exactly that. Legacy Modernisation With AIThe conversation around AI in legacy modernisation is often muddied by marketing noise. As Sheth puts it, "value and hype can coexist". Overpromising doesn't automatically mean a technology is worthless. The real question for technology leaders is whether AI meaningfully improves the cost-time-value equation for a specific problem. This will always start with problem-solution fitness: has someone already solved a comparable challenge with AI, and does the proposed use case genuinely fit that pattern? As Sheth notes, "most things can be judged by cost, time, and value", which is a simple but effective filter for cutting through the noise. Rethinking Legacy ModernisationGenerative AI is inherently probabilistic, while enterprise software has always relied on deterministic, predictable behaviour. Ferri unpacks this tension by separating two very different use cases: using AI to build systems, and embedding AI within operational systems. When AI writes code, inconsistency is manageable; developers review, test and refine the output before it ships. Production systems are a different matter entirely, where unpredictable behaviour carries real operational risk. As Ferri explains, "AI in production requires different guardrails than AI for building." The practical answer is controlled use. AI might suggest alternative products in a marketplace, for instance, while deterministic rules still guarantee that only in-stock items are ever shown. This lets AI add value within a firm, enterprise-grade constraints. Why AI Alone Won't Modernise Legacy SystemsTechnology is only part of the story. Sheth is clear that modernisation is fundamentally about change, and change is hard, especially across large enterprises with tangled, interconnected systems. Tasks that resist automation are often the hardest, like upskilling teams, explaining complex trade-offs, and winning buy-in; these cannot be solved with code alone. These human and organisational factors are routinely underestimated. Where the impact of a change is broad, he also advises either aligning teams properly across the business or breaking the change into smaller, more manageable pieces, a strategy that reduces resistance and smooths the path to adoption. If you would like to learn more about this, visit Thoughtworks or connect with both Sheth and Ferri on LinkedIn. TakeawaysApplying AI to modernise complex enterprise systems.Distinguishing hype from practical AI applications.Balancing probabilistic AI with deterministic enterprise software.Organisational and leadership challenges in AI modernisation.Building control, traceability, and abstractions in AI workflows.Advice for CIOs and CTOs on AI adoption. Chapters00:00 Introduction to AI and Legacy Modernisation 01:18 Meet the Experts: Shodhan and Alessio 02:47 Distinguishing Hype from Value in AI 05:51 The Tension Between Probabilistic and Deterministic Systems 10:13 The Human Element in Modernisation 17:12 AI's Role in Enterprise Transformation 19:26 Distinguishing Hype from Value in AI 22:13 Probabilistic vs Deterministic Systems 27:45 People and Processes in Modernisation 29:03 Lessons in AI for Legacy Modernisation

Every customer service call now produces a measurable outcome, which is exactly why customer experience has become the place where agentic AI either proves itself or falls apart. Most enterprise AI hype centres on generation and productivity. But according to Sneha Iyer, who leads AI value delivery and analytics at Observe.ai, the real test of agentic AI is happening somewhere less flashy, which is the contact centre. In a recent episode of Tech Transformed, host Ravit Jain asked Iyer why customer experience (CX) has become the industry's default stress test and what that means for enterprises still sorting isolated chatbots from genuine AI agents. Iyer has spent nearly a decade watching CX change from manual quality assurance to a blended workforce of human and AI agents. This shift, she says, has quietly rewritten the metrics, tooling, and governance decisions every enterprise leader now has to make. Why Customer Experience Became AI's Testing GroundIyer explains that CX generates more human-AI interaction data than almost any other business function. Every conversation resolves in a clear outcome, resolved or not, retained or churned, and it spans every modality a company touches, from voice to chat to email. Solve AI reliability here, and the lessons transfer everywhere else. What's actually changed, she notes, isn't that AI got smarter; it's that AI stopped just watching and started acting. Where AI agents once flagged patterns in a transcript after the fact, they now issue refunds, verify identities, and book appointments in real time. This has split the workforce in two, namely, AI agents absorb the high-volume, low-risk interactions, while human agents get pushed toward the complex, judgment-heavy calls machines shouldn't handle alone. Old metrics like containment and deflection no longer capture that split; leaders now need blended resolution measures that account for both. Fragmented AI StacksIf you ask most contact centres what their AI stack looks like, you'll find what Iyer calls a "Frankenstein stack": one tool for analytics, another for telephony, another for conversational intelligence, stitched together and barely talking to each other. That setup was tolerable when each tool did one isolated job. It breaks the moment you add agentic AI, because these types of systems depend on shared context to function. Without that context, a customer verified by an AI agent has to repeat everything to the human agent who picks up next, which turns an already frustrating support call into a worse one. Fragmented tools also make it nearly impossible to prove ROI, since every vendor tracks success differently and costs stack with each new integration. This is the case for unified CX platforms: not as a nice-to-have, but as the only way to preserve context across a customer's full journey. Iyer points to "companion agents" as a concrete example of real-time, in-context support for human agents that shows them exactly why an AI agent escalated a call and what happened before they picked up. Build vs. BuyOn the build-versus-buy question, Iyer highlights that building in-house looks cheap upfront and rarely stays that way. Models change every few weeks, which turns any custom build into a permanent maintenance commitment most teams underestimate, including in regulated industries like healthcare and finance, where leaders often assume building keeps data safer. In practice, established vendors have already solved the compliance groundwork, data residency, model governance, and audit trails that a custom build would take months to replicate. Trust, she argues, isn't really about doubting AI's competence. It's the fear of the one catastrophic interaction happening at scale. That's what simulation testing and evaluation frameworks are for, stress-testing AI agents against the hardest, most ambiguous scenarios before launch, not just the easy paths, backed by governance frameworks that can roll back a deployment fast if something breaks. Looking six to twelve months out, Iyer expects three shifts, continued consolidation around unified platforms, evaluation frameworks becoming the real competitive edge (not raw model performance), and pricing models moving from seat-based to outcome-based. Her advice to leaders is to build auditability and governance into your AI strategy now, before regulation forces the issue. Building Customer ExperienceThe throughline of Iyer's conversation with Jain is that agentic AI in customer experience succeeds or fails on infrastructure and trust, not on which model you're running. Enterprises that unify their data, rethink their success metrics, and choose vendors who can prove reliability through thorough testing are the ones positioned to scale AI-driven CX without breaking it. If you would like to find out more about this visit observe.ai or connect with Sneha Iyer on LinkedIn. TakeawaysShift from isolated AI tools to integrated agent systems.Importance of simulation testing and evaluation frameworks.Benefits of unified customer experience platforms.Build versus buy decision in enterprise AI.Future trends in AI-powered customer experience. Chapters00:00 Introduction to Tech Transform and AI Evolution 02:01 Sneha Iyer's Role and Background in AI 09:35 The Shift in Customer Experience with Agentic AI 13:24 The Move Towards Unified Customer Experience Platforms 18:55 Build vs. Buy: Navigating AI Solutions in Enterprises 20:59 The Cost of AI Maintenance and Vendor Insights 22:20 Navigating Compliance in Regulated Industries 24:52 Building Trust in AI Adoption 30:00 Use Cases Driving AI Value 34:31 Future Trends in AI Customer Experience

The semiconductor industry is undergoing one of its most profound transformations in decades. Driven by the insatiable demand for compute power largely fueled by AI workloads, engineers are moving away from traditional monolithic chips and shifting toward complex multi-die designs. This shift brings a new set of challenges that conventional design and validation methods simply cannot handle. In a recent episode of the Tech Transformed podcast, host Dana Gardner sat down with Shekhar Kapoor, Executive Director of Product Line Management at Synopsys, to explore how the growing complexity of semiconductors is changing the way engineers design and validate modern systems. From thermal management to AI-driven automation, the conversation reveals why the old way of building chips is no longer good enough and what the future looks like. Multi-Die DesignKapoor explains that the transition to multi-die design is no longer a matter of preference but a necessity. He attributes this shift to the relentless demand for greater compute capacity, driven largely by the rapid growth of AI. Traditional monolithic chips are hitting hard limits. Reticle sizes are maxing out, and rising yield and cost challenges make it increasingly impractical to pack more functionality onto a single die. Multi-die designs solve this by disaggregating functionality across smaller dies, each targeting the most appropriate process technology, then integrating them into a unified, optimised package. Leading AI systems already integrate multiple compute and I/O dies alongside large high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stacks, scaling to 3x–5x reticle-class designs and beyond. The design challenge is very different. As Kapoor puts it: "You're no longer optimising a single chip, you're optimizing a system of chips." This requires system-level co-design from day one, spanning architecture, silicon, packaging, power delivery, and interconnect strategy simultaneously. Engineers must think in terms of System Technology Co-Optimisation (STCO), not just chip-level optimization. The design tools, methodologies, and team workflows all need to change. For engineers and technology leaders looking to explore these trade-offs, Synopsys has published a comprehensive eBook on accelerating multi-die design and innovation. Thermal Analysis and Multi-Physics ValidationHistorically, thermal, power, and electromagnetic analyses were performed as downstream validation steps once the core design was complete. In a multi-die world, that approach is no longer viable. "Thermal management is becoming the number one issue when designing these multi-die designs. It has to be managed across a range of scales, from transistor activity to package and board level," Kapoor says. The problem with late-stage validation is timing. By the time thermal or power integrity issues surface, the most critical decisions are already locked in floorplans, interconnect topologies established, and packaging assumptions embedded.. At that point, the only options are costly ECOs, excessive margining, or a full redesign. Industry estimates suggest over-design can lead to up to 30-35 per cent wasted silicon and hundreds of millions of dollars in optimisation loss. The solution is a shift-left approach that embeds multiphysics analysis from the earliest stages of design. When thermal hotspots, voltage drop issues, and electromagnetic interactions are identified early, engineers can adjust partitioning and placement strategies before they become expensive problems. This is the methodology detailed in the Synopsys ebook on Multiphysics Fusion for multi-die design, which covers how teams can build continuous multiphysics validation into their flows to avoid late-stage surprises and protect both performance and reliability. Multiphysics Fusion and AI-Driven Chip DesignTo operationalise the shift-left methodology at scale, Synopsys has introduced the concept of Multiphysics Fusion. This is the native integration of AI-powered EDA technologies with ANSYS's gold-standard multiphysics sign-off analysis capabilities. Within the 3DIC Compiler platform, this means unifying the implementation environment with RedHawk-SC, RedHawk-SC Electrothermal, and HFSS-IC technologies. This brings IR drop, thermal, signal, and power integrity analysis directly into the design loop. The result is greater predictability, tighter correlation between in-design analysis and sign-off, and significantly fewer design iterations. The impact on design closure times has been substantial. According to Kapoor, teams using the Multiphysics Fusion solution have seen turnaround times shrink "from weeks to days, and in some cases even hours" even for large, high-performance multi-die designs. AI amplifies these gains further. Synopsys employs AI in two primary ways: assistive automation through its 3DSO.ai technology, which integrates multiphysics feedback into the optimization loop in real time, and agentic workflow orchestration, which becomes increasingly critical as system complexity scales toward designs incorporating hundreds or even thousands of GPUs. As Kapoor notes, at that scale, "agentic workflows could help engineers converge faster" and manage trade-offs that would otherwise be intractable. If you would like to find out more about this, download the full eBook: Multiphysics Fusion Technology for Multi-Die Designs Explained from Synopsys, which expands on each of these themes with real-world examples, design methodologies, and guidance for implementation teams. You can also connect with Shekhar Kapoor on LinkedIn. TakeawaysMulti-die architectures and their drivers.Challenges of traditional monolithic chips.Importance of early multi-physics analysis.Multiphysics fusion and its benefits.AI's role in design automation.Reducing time-to-market through integrated platforms.System-level co-design.Thermal management in 3D IC stacking.Shift left approach in multi-physics validation.Future trends in semiconductor design. Chapters00:00 Introduction to Semiconductor Complexity 02:00 The Shift to Multi-Die Designs 04:30 Challenges in Multi-Die Design 08:11 The Importance of Early Multi-Physics Analysis 10:05 Introducing Multiphysics Fusion 12:37 AI's Role in Semiconductor Design 16:37 Reducing Time to Market 19:39 Applications Beyond AI 21:12 Real-World Examples of Multi-Physics Validation 26:20 Practical Advice for Engineers

When most people hear "digital divide," they picture communities without broadband. But in 2026, that definition is dangerously outdated. "The digital divide is no longer just about internet access." These words from Graeme Gordon, Chief Executive Officer of Converged Solutions Group, set the tone for one of the most pressing conversations in technology today. In this episode of Tech Transformed, host Trisha Pillay sits down with Gordon to unpack the changing digital divide, the massive impact of AI adoption, and what it truly takes. Gordon, whose background spans electrical engineering, oil and gas robotics, and three decades of founding and scaling tech companies, says that the new digital divide is about meaningful participation in the AI-driven economy, not just connectivity. “More people are connected than ever before,” Gordon explains. “But connection without capability is just noise.” He points to mobile internet adoption as a case in point. Billions of people now access the internet via smartphones. However, the gap between scrolling social media and using cloud-based AI tools to build products and services remains wide. This participation gap is the new frontier of digital exclusion. The implications stretch well beyond individual users. Organisations, governments, and education systems that fail to close this gap risk being locked out of the innovation economy entirely. AI Adoption Without EducationFew developments have accelerated the digital divide conversation quite like the arrival of ChatGPT in late 2022. Gordon calls it plainly: "ChatGPT has disrupted and transformed the sector," and not just for technologists. The tool put generative AI in the hands of business professionals, students, and everyday users almost overnight. Gordon says it's time to rethink our approach to AI. At a recent event he attended with 100 business leaders in the room, every hand went up when asked if they had used an AI platform in the last 24 hours. When asked who had received any formal training on how to use those tools, not a single hand was raised. This is the core paradox of AI adoption today. The tools are everywhere. The understanding of how to use them safely, strategically, and effectively is not. Without structured digital literacy and education, rapid AI adoption becomes a liability rather than an asset for individuals and organisations alike. Barriers to Digital InclusionGordon identifies several interconnected barriers preventing organisations from fully participating in the digital economy. Let's have a look: Skills gaps remain the most acute. Technology evolves faster than most training programmes, let alone formal education curricula. University degrees and annual school terms were not designed for the pace of AI-driven change.Trust and credibility are equally critical. Gordon warns of what he calls "AI slop", the growing proliferation of AI-generated content and half-built solutions that look polished but lack substance or security. Organisations that rely on AI without proper oversight risk undermining the customer trust they're trying to build.While infrastructure quality is improving globally, it still creates disparities, particularly around data sovereignty. The question of where your data sits, who can access it, and under what compliance framework is no longer just a legal concern. It is a competitive and ethical one. Sovereign AIOne of the most forward-looking concepts Gordon introduces is sovereign AI, the idea that organisations must control not just their data, but the AI infrastructure that touches it. Just as data sovereignty became a boardroom priority, AI sovereignty is now following the same path. "Business leaders type sensitive information into ChatGPT or Copilot without thinking twice," Gordon cautions. The solution isn't to avoid AI, it's to build internal AI agents and platforms that interact with large language models without exposing proprietary data to the open web. This is why hyperscaler data centres are appearing in unexpected geographies: latency is secondary; sovereignty is the driver. Gordon's advice to business leaders is refreshingly direct: go experiment. "You won't break anything," he says. The AI-driven economy rewards curiosity, iteration, and speed of learning, not perfection. Leadership teams need to model responsible AI use, invest in upskilling their people, and treat education as a strategic asset. This applies as much to frontline healthcare workers as it does to C-suite executives. If you would like to find out more, connect with Graeme Gordon on LinkedIn. TakeawaysThe evolving digital divide from access to participation.Impact of AI and ChatGPT on business and society.Importance of secure and sovereign AI infrastructure.Role of education in digital literacy for all.Leadership strategies for AI adoption and trust.Barriers to digital inclusion: skills, trust, infrastructure.Practical steps for organisations to implement AI responsibly. Chapters00:00 Understanding the Digital Divide 02:49 The Role of AI in Participation 06:01 Barriers to Digital Adoption 09:07 The Importance of Education 11:45 Building a Secure AI Foundation 14:51 Trust and Credibility in AI 18:11 Practical Advice for Organisations

AI isn't just speeding up recruiting; it's actually forcing companies to redesign work itself, blending human judgment with agentic execution across hiring, mobility, and skills development. As a result, most conversations these days are about AI in the enterprise centre on software development and engineering. Recruiting, hiring, and talent management get far less attention, but they may be where AI's impact is most immediate. In a recent episode of Tech Transformed, host Dana Gardner spoke with Meghna Punhani, Chief People Officer at Eightfold AI, about how organisations are rethinking talent acquisition, workforce planning, and employee development in an AI-driven world. Meghna Punhani's perspective is shaped by nearly two decades at Google, a stint leading employee experience at Palo Alto Networks, and her current dual role at Eightfold AI, where she both leads the people function and helps build the product her team relies on. That vantage point gives her a practical, ground-level view of what works and what doesn't when AI meets HR. Reimagining the Talent Lifecycle with AI Punhani's central argument is that most legacy HR systems were designed for a different purpose, one that has evolved as work itself has changed and the workforce now includes AI agents alongside people. Simply bolting automation onto existing processes, she argues, isn't enough. Organisations that are succeeding are the ones re-engineering roles, workflows, and organisational structures from the ground up, treating this as an operating-model shift rather than an IT upgrade. This shift touches the entire talent lifecycle, from how companies find candidates and evaluate skills instead of just job titles to how they support internal mobility. Punhani points out that skills now have a much shorter shelf life than in the past, which means static job descriptions are giving way to dynamic, skills-based decision-making. AI, she says, helps surface pathways for employees that traditional resumes and titles would never reveal, including her own nontraditional route into HR leadership. How AI Is Reshaping Workforce Strategy Trust is the recurring theme throughout the discussion. Punhani is candid that employees often fear AI-driven decisions, especially around jobs and evaluations. Her approach is focused on transparency first. When Eightfold rolled out digital twins internally, employees were uneasy until leadership explained how the technology worked and used it themselves, which helped build organisation-wide confidence. That same principle shows up in Eightfold's own hiring practice. One example is the company's campus recruiting programme in India, where its AI interviewer conducted roughly 90 per cent of interviews. This enabled recruiting to scale from around eight or 10 university partners to more than 150, and from approximately 5,000 applications to 15,000, without pulling engineers away from their day-to-day duties. Time-to-offer dropped from around six weeks to as little as four days in some technical roles, largely because interviews could happen around the clock rather than around a recruiter's or hiring manager's schedule. Beyond recruiting, Eightfold's internal initiative, nicknamed Project Andromeda, applies the same re-engineering approach across sales and finance, reportedly reclaiming thousands of employee hours through redesigned, agent-assisted workflows. AI and the Future of TalentLooking ahead, Punhani doesn't frame AI as a threat to human contribution, but she frames it as an amplifier of it. As tools become more accessible across every function, she believes the people who will succeed won't be the ones who know the most facts, since AI can answer those questions. Instead, it will be the people who ask better questions, orchestrate multiple AI agents, and apply judgment where the right answer isn't obvious. For HR leaders specifically, Punhani's advice is to claim a seat at the table now, rather than letting AI adoption happen without a people-first lens. This means learning the technology firsthand, demonstrating its value to non-technical teams, and partnering closely with CTOs and CIOs to shape decisions jointly. Her advice for individuals entering this shifting job market is similarly grounded: focus on learning agility over any single technical skill, since the skills in demand today may look different within months. Future of AI in Talent ManagementAcross the conversation, Punhani returns to one idea, and that is AI in talent management isn't primarily a technology problem; it's a leadership and trust problem. Organisations that treat it that way, redesigning work with both humans and agents in mind, are the ones seeing measurable gains in speed, candidate experience, and internal mobility. For HR leaders exploring AI adoption, the takeaway from this episode is to start before you feel ready, build trust through transparency, and let AI handle evaluation and execution so people can focus on judgment, empathy, and connecting the dots across the organisation. If you would like to find out more, visit eightfold.ai or connect with Meghna Punhani on LinkedIn. TakeawaysAI's impact on talent acquisition and management.Reengineering work processes with AI.Building trust and transparency in AI systems.Skills-based internal mobility and workforce planning.AI-driven candidate evaluation and employee development. Chapters00:00 Introduction to AI in Talent Management 02:59 Understanding AI's Role in Talent Acquisition 06:07 AI's Impact on Workforce Planning and Skills Development 10:02 Building Trust in AI for Hiring Processes 13:04 Internal Use of AI at Eightfold AI 18:58 Measuring ROI from AI in Talent Acquisition 25:02 Enhancing Candidate Experience with AI 29:53 Future Directions for AI in Talent Management

With enterprises now rushing to integrate AI agents into their operations and security, the most imperative focus now becomes the AI model itself. However, Eric Tschetter, Chief Architect at Imply, believes the real challenge is within the data infrastructure that supports these systems. In the recent episode of the Tech Transformed podcast, Kevin Petrie, BARC Vice President of Research, sat down with Tschetter to talk about how AI is actually increasing the current needs around scale, performance, and data access. “Agents are always running queries. They’re always doing stuff,” Tschetter stated. Unlike human analysts, AI systems work continuously, producing much higher query volumes and putting more pressure on the data platforms underneath. This leads to a greater demand for observability architectures that can manage more data, more users, and more machine-to-machine interactions without losing speed. For Tschetter, the solution is not to create new observability tools, but to rethink the data layer that supports them. Key TakeawaysAI is transforming observability and security disciplines.The observability warehouse concept is gaining traction.AI agents increase the volume of queries significantly.Data silos remain a major challenge for enterprises.Collaboration between IT and security teams is essential.Observability and security teams often consume the same data.A decoupled architecture can enhance data accessibility.The semantic layer must support multiple query languages.Effective data management is crucial for AI-driven workloads.Data should be stored once and accessed from multiple platforms. Chapters00:00 Introduction to AI and Observability02:08 Challenges in Observability with AI06:44 Modernising Architecture for Observability10:49 Decoupled Observability and Semantic Layers16:31 Collaboration Between IT and Security Teams22:23 Imply's Observability Warehouse and Data Lakes For more information on AI, observability and Imply’s observability warehouse and data lakes, please visit imply.io. For further information on all things B2B Tech, please visit em360tech.com Imply LinkedIn: @Imply Imply X: @implydata Imply YouTube: @Implydata EM360Tech YouTube: @enterprisemanagement360 EM360Tech LinkedIn: @EM360Tech EM360Tech X: @EM360Tech Follow: @EM360Tech on YouTube, LinkedIn and X Stay connected for more expert insights, podcast episodes, and enterprise data strategy discussions