AI in Service Organisations: Why Human–AI Collaboration Will Decide Who Thrives in 2026
AI isn’t about to wipe out service jobs—but it is quietly rewriting who thrives in them. The real divide I see in 2026 is between AI‑literate and AI‑indifferent professionals. Service leaders and practitioners who treat AI as a partner, redesign workflows, and build new skills will define the next decade of customer experience and service excellence.
The SaaSpocalypse Is Here—But Indian IT Will Survive: How AI Agents Are Rewriting Software Economics
The $285B SaaS wipeout wasn’t apocalypse—it was forced evolution. While 40% of testing roles face extinction, Indian IT builds 500+ agents and invests $1B+ in upskilling. Accenture trains 500,000+; Microsoft designates Indian firms as “Frontier Firms.” The shift: headcount to hybrid pods, labor arbitrage to AI orchestration. Bengaluru native Rahul Patil, Anthropic’s CTO, leads disruption from home. Survival requires reimagining work, not defending legacy.
Sanchar Saathi: From Must‑Have to Nice‑to‑Have in Just One Week
India’s Sanchar Saathi episode has become a textbook case of how even well‑intentioned digital safety initiatives can fail when they are rolled out as top‑down diktats rather than co‑created infrastructure. The government has now fully withdrawn the order that required every new smartphone to ship with a non‑removable Sanchar Saathi app, returning the tool to […]
The Babel Effect: Old World vs. AI-Driven Marketing
In today’s marketing landscape, brands and consumers are caught in a modern-day Babel—a world where the language of connection is constantly evolving and often feels fragmented. Just as the biblical Babel scattered people into a confusion of tongues, the rise of artificial intelligence has introduced a whirlwind of new marketing dialects, data-driven signals, and algorithmic […]
The DeepSeek Revolution: The race is not over, but the rules have irrevocably changed.
The meteoric rise of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley, exposing vulnerabilities in the West’s trillion-dollar AI investment strategy while offering a blueprint for democratizing artificial intelligence. By delivering high-performance models at a fraction of traditional costs, DeepSeek challenges the notion that AI dominance requires limitless capital—and its implications for global […]
The Symbiosis of Silicon and Soul: Marketing’s Evolution in the Age of Agentic AI
As we step into 2025, the marketing world is experiencing an unprecedented buzz around Agentic AI. This technology is not just an incremental improvement over traditional AI; it likely represents a significant leap in how businesses will engage with customers and manage their marketing strategies. The Evolution of AI in Marketing Agentic AI marks a […]
How Is the Role of the CMO Evolving Today?
I have been reading with great interest about how the role of the CMO is changing and evolving. The base data used in all the headlines is alarmist. Sample some of the headlines I came across – ‘CMOs, You Have 23 Months to Live” (Ad Age), ‘The Most Dangerous Job in Business: The Chief Marketing […]
7 Change Management Tips to Future-Proof Your Business
The new normal is passé. Today, we’re living in a world we couldn’t have imagined 16 months ago. It’s no surprise that every strategist is urging us to ‘re-imagine.’ We need to reimagine our lives, purpose, businesses, beliefs, relationships—the list goes on. Values are the one constant we can rely on, as long as they’re […]
Why Marketers Can’t Afford to Ignore Tech Trends?
Technology has successfully transported us to Mars. ‘Perseverance’ pays off and no pun intended. SpaceX is doing some revolutionary work in space travel. And a lot of other technology companies are redefining how we lead our lives. There is a whole generation now that is born into this tech era, where tech trends are shaping […]
9 Challenges in Marketing: Insights & Solutions
There are too many articles and discussions about the top trends in marketing, technology, analytics, and customer experience in the new year. Too much noise and too many isolated thoughts, each of them valid and true in its own limited way. When I look back, I realize that too much vertical specialization has been both […]