New Delhi, July 24 -- As India rapidly scales its digital infrastructure, enterprises are navigating a complex landscape shaped by AI adoption, cybersecurity concerns, and evolving workforce readiness. Kyndryl, a global IT services company that spun off from IBM in 2021, has maintained a strong operational focus on India since its inception.
In a conversation with TechCircle, Una Pulizzi, Global Head of Corporate Affairs at Kyndryl, shares her perspective on the country's enterprise tech trajectory, the challenges companies face in adapting to AI, and how Kyndryl is working to bridge the gap between emerging technologies and real-world business outcomes. Edited Excerpts:
From a global perspective, how would you assess the maturity and speed of India's digital infrastructure transformation?
Kyndryl spun off from IBM about three and a half years ago. From day one, we knew that our teams in India, our customers in India, and how we deliver from India would be essential to our success.
We support around 700 customers through our operations in India, so we started focusing on this region early. Within our first six months as an independent company, my boss told me we were bringing our board of directors to India. It was our first board trip, and we chose India deliberately. That decision reflected how central India is to our business and people. It's been a key part of our foundation from the beginning.
Since then, we've seen a lot of change. Even from my early visits as part of Kyndryl to now, there's been significant progress in areas like skilling and the broader Digital India initiative. Our board has seen this progress firsthand during their visits, and it's clear how much energy and momentum is building here. Every day, we see the impact of this through the work our teams do and the results our customers achieve. We often say we do India for India, but also India for the world. The pace of technological transformation we're witnessing in India is a major driver of that outlook.
Are there specific sectors in India leading tech modernization, and what are the most pressing infrastructure challenges you're seeing on the ground?
We're seeing rapid technological change, especially with AI, and it's affecting everyone. At Kyndryl, we're focused on how AI is impacting people because we're fundamentally a people-based business. Our customers rely on us directly, so understanding how AI will affect the workforce, ours and theirs, is critical. We've spent significant time thinking about how to prepare for AI. We recently conducted a study showing that while 95% of businesses are implementing AI, 71% of business leaders believe their workforces aren't ready for it. In India, the picture is slightly better, Indian businesses are eight percentage points ahead of the global average in workforce readiness.
Indian organizations are also leading in using AI to drive growth. About 70% of them are doing so, which is well above the global average. There's strong momentum, with many companies moving quickly to adopt new technologies.
We support this adoption through tools like Kyndryl Bridge, our open integration platform. It helps manage complex hybrid IT environments, giving customers real-time visibility into their operations. This platform is AI-powered and allows for seamless integration across hundreds of technologies.
Kyndryl Bridge is used across sectors like banking and manufacturing, providing a unified view into IT systems. It's driven by 185 million automations and 13 million AI-enabled actionable insights. So far, it's helped generate an estimated $3 billion in potential cost savings.
India is growing fast in AI but remains more a consumer than a creator. How are enterprises adjusting their infrastructure for AI, and what are they still missing?
We recently released a report on people readiness, which highlights both a technological and human element to adapting to AI. Organizational change, especially related to AI, remains a challenge.
While this issue isn't unique to India, many Indian business leaders are concerned about whether their workforce is prepared to manage AI-related challenges over the next five years. These concerns often center around trust, whether employees believe their jobs are secure, and skills, whether they have the capabilities needed to adapt.
Overall, Indian CEOs, CTOs, and CIOs report more confidence than the global average, but there are still clear concerns about how well their teams will adapt and what kind of return on investment that adaptation will deliver for their organizations and their customers.
Globally, there's a general sense of uncertainty about how to effectively prepare the workforce for these changes. That said, Indian executives, while aware of the challenges, appear more confident and are actively working to address them.
With AI, cybersecurity, and ESG becoming board-level priorities, how is the role of a technology services partner evolving in these strategic discussions?
We're here to partner and find solutions. Within six months of becoming independent, we brought our board to India. We focused not only on our business and customers but also on how Kyndryl could contribute more broadly.
We introduced Cyber Rakshak, a program to train 100,000 rural women in cybersecurity, using a train-the-trainer model. This aligns with our work in helping customers build secure, resilient systems, while also supporting vulnerable communities. We also launched Cyber Sanik, aimed at students. These programs started in India and have since expanded to seven other markets.
From the start, we built our systems and set commitments, including a 2040 net-zero target and renewable energy goals. We help customers optimize their IT for their own environmental objectives. On the social side, we invest in employee training for roles in cybersecurity and AI. On governance, we focus on compliance, ethics, and AI governance. As a tech company, we see it as our role to drive progress in these areas.
How does the tech landscape of Indian enterprises differ from other markets in terms of maturity, complexity, or risk appetite?
Kyndryl operates in about 60 countries, and India is one of our key markets. We work extensively with customers that have operations across multiple geographies, so we regularly see differences in how countries adopt and integrate new technologies, including AI.
In India, we've observed strong government-led initiatives around Digital India and skilling, which have been effective and valuable as we build and expand our presence in the country. As a relatively new company, this support has helped us establish a stronger foothold.
We're also using AI in India both for internal operations and in customer pilot projects. These pilots provide important insights that we apply globally, including within our major platforms like Kyndryl Bridge. The lessons we learn in India often influence our broader global approach.
What do you think India's enterprise tech landscape will look like over the next five years?
It's hard to predict what things will look like even a year from now, let alone five years out, given how fast everything is changing. I could say something definitive, but the pace of change, especially in areas like AI, makes that risky. What seemed far off at the start of the year is already happening.
In India, we're seeing a highly dynamic environment. The level of engineering capability, focus, and innovation, especially from our own teams at Kyndryl, is driving real momentum. That's not about what will happen in five years; it's about what will happen in the next six to twelve months.
At Kyndryl, we're focused on helping customers adopt and deploy emerging technologies that boost productivity and growth. Despite being a relatively new company, we have a long history in managing complex IT environments, and that gives us an edge in building practical, scalable frameworks for deploying agentic systems across hybrid infrastructure. We'll be sharing more details on that later today.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from TechCircle.