As artificial intelligence accelerates the pace of technology development, organisations are increasingly facing a different challenge, identifying the right problems to solve, said Sindhu Gangadharan, Managing Director, SAP Labs India and Head, Customer Industry Solutions, SAP.
Speaking at a fireside discussion on Leadership in the AI Era at The India Advantage Summit 2026, Gangadharan said companies need to look beyond AI as a technology exercise and consider its implications for leadership, business processes and employees.
“AI is actually a leadership transformation that we need to look at,” Gangadharan said. She argued that organisations should begin with the outcomes they want to achieve rather than selecting a technology first and then looking for a problem to apply it to.
“You can build a lot of things much faster these days. But if you don’t know what to build, that’s where the problem comes in,” she said, pointing to the importance of domain understanding and engagement with customers before developing solutions.
Gangadharan also spoke about the challenge of moving AI initiatives from pilots into larger deployments. She cited examples including an AI-powered billing agent developed for a global professional services company, where the system supports processes involving workforce deployment, regulatory requirements, legal considerations and pricing.
She also referred to the use of multiple AI agents in vaccine manufacturing and the deployment of AI agents at manufacturing plants to support quality-related processes.
According to Gangadharan, moving from experimentation to scaled deployment requires a combination of business understanding, domain expertise, technology and data foundations.
“AI is only as successful as you have the right data,” she said, highlighting the importance of access to appropriate datasets and a robust underlying data architecture.
The discussion also touched on the impact of AI on jobs. Gangadharan said the workforce discussion should extend beyond potential job displacement to include employee upskilling and the use of AI to strengthen existing capabilities.
“If you just talk about efficiency in board meetings, but not talk about upliftment of people, then you’ve missed out a big time,” she said.
Gangadharan also said organisations need to balance the pace of AI adoption with safety, security and clear guardrails, while giving employees and teams room to experiment and learn from failures.