Artificial intelligence is no longer a buzzword. It is the heartbeat of digital conversion. However, as businesses accelerate towards the AIRED model, the distinctive contradictions face today's technology leaders. How do you provide certainty in a world based on constant change?
in ETCIO Annual Concrave 2025an impactful opening panel brought together top CIOs and technology leaders to deal with the elephants in the boardroom. It is the evolving role of CIOs in the face of rapid technological, cultural and business model disruptions.
The panel, which was hosted by Shantheri Mallaya, editors and others,
- Hitesh Sachdev, Head – Innovation & Startups, ICICI Bank
- Ashok Jade, Global CIO, Kirloskar Brothers Limited
- Manikandan Thangarathnam, Senior Director – Mobility and Platforms, Uber
- Rakesh Bhardwaj, Group CIO, Lupin
- Rajesh Gopal, Global CDO, Tata Consumer Products
- Mukundha Madhavan, APAC Tech Lead, DataStax
Together, they explored the paradoxes that shape the reality of CIOs in 2025. It unlocked the blind spot, deciphering the room's expectations, and asked if AI would become a teammate or a competitor.
“From Controller to Translator”: Rewriting the CIO job description
Rakesh Bhardwaj, group CIO of Lupine, offered an impressive take. “We are no longer providers. We are becoming translators. We translate volatility into opportunities and AI into business impact.”
He stressed that AI adoption was not surprising, but what's noteworthy is how quickly business functions accepted it. With Genai's natural language interface, AI is no longer intimidating. It can be used. Bhardwaj said the ease of interaction attacked it from the support function to the business model redesign center.
“Now, the focus must shift from adoption to embedding intelligence to daily decision-making.”
It's not just about automating. Question: Do I need AI too?
Uber's Manikandan Thangarathnam brought pragmatism to the conversation. “Many companies suffer from FOMO. “But not all issues require AI.”
He explained how Uber sets error thresholds differently depending on the application. “We use AI with 99% accuracy for identity verification. However, 85% is fine when viewing the recommended ride type.” He pointed out. “It's about tolerating the role of AI in the problems you're solving.”
Legacy to Leadership: When a CIO becomes a Growth Architect
Ashok Jade, global CIO for Kirloskar Brothers, challenged the outdated notion that AI is merely for increasing efficiency.
“We're not just improving our processes, we're opening up a whole new line of business,” he said.
Kirloskar pilots a service-driven model in which pumps are sold as services enabled in AI, IoT and digital factories. Their goal: reduce channel dependency and allow AI agents to direct product discovery online.
“The board doesn't ask what LLM we use. They ask what new business we're creating with it.”
Trust is a new differentiator for consumer-centric businesses
Rajesh Gopal, global CDO of Tata Consumer Products, highlighted the act of balancing deep personalization and digital trust. He highlighted two pillars:
- Explanational possibilities – “People don't trust what they don't understand. This applies to both customers and internal users.”
- Context-related – “All AI outputs should feel timely, accurate and intuitive to the user.”
His focus? Make AI meaningful Customer Journey Mapping From consciousness to loyalty and guarantee Touchpoints are converted to trust, not fatigue.A Quiet Revolution: Rethinking AI Preparation from the Scratch
Mukundha Madhavan of DataStax has dismantled a company that is often wrong about AI conversion.
He listed two pillars of AI preparation data.
- Access: Through an operational data layer spanning structured, unstructured, multimodal data
- Understanding: Through advanced expression formats such as vectors, graphs, hybrid search, LLM
“Privacy and relevance are the biggest challenges. Companies need to develop new strategies to manage the interactions with large amounts of AI's sensitive data.”
CIOs at intersections: strategy, talent, elevation
The panel concluded with a strong reflection on how AI is reconstructing not only the system but also the CIO's identity itself.
Rakesh Bhardwaj asked the CIO to own talent development not only within it but across the enterprise. “The real risk is not displacement,” Manicandan said. “That's irrelevant.”
Takeout: CIO's new mission for 2025
As the discussion unfolded, one thing became clear. The role of a CIO is no longer defined by technology. This is defined by translation, transformation and building trust.
In 2025, success is not about deploying more dashboards or faster APIs. That's about:
- Turn AI uncertainty into business clarity
- Designing reliable and explainable technologies
- Really create board expectations to match business value CIOS
- Rethink talent not as a supportive layer, but as a strategic differentiator.
“We can no longer be gatekeepers. We must be valuable creators.” Chanteri Malaya said at the closing session. “AI is not going to replace CIOs. But we need a new kind of CIO. This is someone who thinks with algorithms, acts on outcomes, and leads without a map.”
