This session challenges the gap between AI ambition and actual business transformation. While many organizations say they are “transforming with AI,” the harder question is what has truly changed: the operating model, the customer experience, the workflow, the decision process, or only the technology stack.
In this conversation, Ashish Lahoti, Chief Transformation Officer at ServiceNow, brings more than 20 years of enterprise transformation experience to explain why AI initiatives often stall when they are treated as IT projects instead of business reinvention efforts. The discussion focuses on what leaders must do differently to move AI from experimentation to measurable enterprise impact.
Key Takeaways
- AI Transformation Is a Business Problem First: The biggest failures happen when AI is owned only by technology teams instead of being tied directly to business outcomes, operating priorities, and measurable value.
- Changing Tools Is Not the Same as Changing Work: Real transformation requires redesigning workflows, decisions, and accountability, not simply adding AI features on top of existing processes.
- Enterprise Data Still Determines AI Success: AI cannot create transformation from weak foundations. Leaders need trusted, connected, usable data before expecting AI to deliver meaningful results.
- Pilots Die Without Executive Ownership: AI initiatives stall when they lack senior sponsorship, clear business metrics, and a path from experimentation to adoption across the organization.
- Transformation Requires a New Leadership Mindset: Leaders must stop asking only, “What can AI do?” and start asking, “What must our business become now that AI is available?”
The message is clear: AI transformation is not about chasing the newest model or launching another pilot. It is about using AI as a catalyst to rethink how the business operates, serves customers, empowers employees, and creates value at scale.
Featured Guest: Ashish Lahoti, Chief Transformation Officer, ServiceNow
Moderator: Asha Saxena, Founder & CEO, WLDA