The Storytelling CIO and the Invisible Engine of AI

Time of India

3 days ago

At the 7th edition of the ETCIO Annual Conclave, an exclusive leadership summit that brought together India's foremost technology decision-makers, a deceptively simple game of 'Simon Says' opened the afternoon session, offering an unexpected yet powerful cue about attention, perception, and the evolving role of the CIO.The speaker, Ameen Haque, founder of Storywallahs, stood before a crowd of India's top technology executives. But this wasn't just icebreaking. 'Over a game of simple 'Simon Says',' Haque later explained, 'it was thought-provoking for CIOs, moving you to a place of alertness.' It was a miniature neuroscience experiment: Proof that the brain responds more to visual stimuli than verbal ones.
This insight, Haque iterates, holds the key to modern tech leadership. 'We forget facts,' he said, 'but the human brain remembers stories.'
That's the paradox CIOs are navigating now. It is to narrate ideas at the intersection of tech and business clearly and quickly to stakeholders who may not understand the language of IT. 'How does one tell a story in the business context,' Haque asked aloud, 'tell it fast and simplify for the non-IT folks?'
CIOs Confront the Real Test of AI
The question is timely. Across India's boardrooms,
digital transformation
is in full tilt.
Generative AI
has emerged not merely as a tool but as a turning point—what Rakesh Bhardwaj, Global CIO at Lupin, calls 'a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.' Bhardwaj says, 'The bold experiments everyone is doing are paying off. GenAI has come as a hope where we can pole vault. Now we are in the game of translating volatility to opportunity. AI-led autonomy to human centricity.'
Yet while India's adoption of AI technologies has outpaced global averages, the real question is not just about uptake—but impact. 'Who's really extracting the value?' Bhardwaj's rhetorical question remains.
Ashok Jade, Global CIO of Kirloskar Brothers, knows this challenge all too well. Working within the constraints of a legacy manufacturing enterprise, he sees AI as more than an efficiency engine. 'What if AI could open a new line of business?' he asked. Imagine a future where an AI agent helps a customer select an industrial pump online, surpassing today's three-tiered architecture. 'Moving ahead, can a pump be sold as a service?' he posed. 'Can a digital factory be taken to the customer, consequently?'
That tension—between operational safety and technological speed—finds vivid expression in the mobility sector. Manikandan Thangarathnam of Uber India explains, 'Today, Uber operates in 70 countries, drivers uploading vehicle documents—how quickly can we look at allowing them to drive?' But in mobility, haste comes at a price. 'The margin of error is too low; We cannot let a customer drive unsafely,' he said. The key he believes is, 'Understand the scale, depth, and complexity before applying the tech for the problem.'
But innovation at Uber hasn't slowed. 'This is the era of transformation in mobility,' Thangarathnam said. 'We can solve traffic in India by more people in lesser vehicles. Lower cost, higher predictability—that's what customers want in shared mobility. So even if it takes four years to solve the problem, it remains evergreen.'
If the optimism sounds radical, so does the provocation. Hitesh Sachdev, Head of Innovation & Startups at ICICI Bank, half-jokingly asked, 'Will AI be the CEO of the company?' In some ways, that future doesn't feel entirely far-fetched.
The workforce, meanwhile, is undergoing its own metamorphosis. In a rapid-fire round, executives offered one-word answers to a daunting question: How are you rethinking talent in the era of AI? 'Upskilling,' 'Business-first,' and, to applause, 'The person knowing AI will take your job, not AI itself.' Despite concerns of automation replacing roles—over 300,000 jobs and counting—there is also a 2.8% productivity uptick. That trade-off defines the moment.
The Invisible Engine: Making AI Work Across Business
Some of the biggest wins, however, come from redefining how organizations make decisions and execute at scale. Kenny Kesar, Global CIO at Wipro, explains, 'We asked: How do we move from scattered innovation to systemic?' The $11 billion company transitioned from viewing AI as an external pilot to an internal imperative. 'We moved from AI-as-a-thing to AI-in-everything,' he said. Wipro's AI-infused go-to-market tools now include deal intelligence systems and proposal copilots, built on a platform called AI Fabric. 'True transformation happens when AI is the invisible engine.'
The metaphor sticks. 'AI is a convex lens in the hands of visionary leadership,' Kesar added, explaining how Wipro deployed 70 enterprise-wide AI use cases and instituted MLOps to scale further. The next frontier? Equipping 235,000 employees with AI skills.
In a room full of CIOs, the
storytelling
wasn't just about technology. It was about re-imagining what leadership looks like in the age of algorithms. And, as Haque suggested, the most powerful shift isn't technical at all. 'Some of the best tech leaders,' he said simply, 'are good storytellers.'
The rest, after all, is just data.