On AI Appreciation Day, Leaders Highlight the Transformational Role of Artificial Intelligence Across Sectors

New Delhi, July 16: As the world marks AI Appreciation Day on July 16, global and Indian business leaders are echoing a common sentiment: artificial intelligence is not just accelerating technology—it is reshaping the very fabric of human potential, enterprise operations, cybersecurity, and digital interactions. From personalized customer journeys to autonomous logistics, from malware defense to fraud prevention, AI is no longer an add-on—it is becoming the architecture of the future.

Unlocking Human Potential at Scale
“AI Appreciation Day celebrates unleashing human potential at scale,” says Dr. Adnan Masood, Chief Architect – AI and Machine Learning, UST. “The future belongs to humans with AI, not AI with humans.” He stresses that generative AI has democratized creativity, while agentic AI is redefining execution. Organizations that weave ethical AI co-pilots into their systems are not just increasing productivity—they’re reducing the time between idea and impact. “It’s not just about preventing harm,” Masood adds. “It’s about building systems that make human judgment faster, sharper, and more impactful.”

Transforming Cybersecurity from Reactive to Resilient
As AI enhances enterprise potential, it is also being weaponized by cyber attackers. Fabio Fratucello, Field CTO World Wide at CrowdStrike, warns that adversaries are leveraging large language models (LLMs) to create highly convincing phishing and business email compromise attacks. In response, he points to agentic AI tools like CrowdStrike’s Charlotte AI, which autonomously triages threats with 98% accuracy, saving security teams up to 40 hours a week. “The combination of machine speed and human-defined guardrails is the only way to stay ahead,” he adds.

Echoing this, Parag Khurana, Country Manager, India at Barracuda Networks, emphasizes the dual-edged nature of AI. “The same tools that enhance content and productivity are being used to craft adaptive and evasive cyber threats,” he says. To counter this, organizations need multimodal AI security that can detect malicious payloads hidden in images, QR codes, or seemingly benign messages. “Cyber defense must succeed 100% of the time—the attackers only need to succeed once.”

Sanjay Katkar, Joint Managing Director at Quick Heal Technologies, underscores how AI is central to building stronger, faster, more adaptive cyber defenses. “At Quick Heal, AI is a foundational capability,” he says, highlighting their GoDeep.AI engine and AntiFraud.AI, India’s first AI-powered fraud prevention system. Their Seqrite Intelligent Assistant (SIA) brings conversational AI into cybersecurity operations, helping security teams make faster decisions in high-stakes environments. “We remain committed to reimagining cybersecurity through responsible AI,” Katkar affirms.

Reimagining Customer Experience and Human Interaction
On the engagement front, Harsha Solanki, VP & GM Asia at Infobip, sees AI redefining how brands interact with customers. “AI is evolving from a support tool to an autonomous agent,” she explains. Infobip’s Customer Experience Orchestration Platform (CXOP) uses AI to deliver proactive, contextual, and personalized conversations—even resolving customer issues before they’re raised. “It’s the shift from reactive engagement to intelligent orchestration, where every interaction builds trust.”

AI Driving Smarter Logistics and Business Growth
In the logistics sector, Dhruvil Sanghvi, CEO and Founder of LogiNext, points to AI’s transformative role in route optimization, demand forecasting, and autonomous operations. “The AI logistics market is projected to surge from $18.01 billion in 2024 to $549 billion by 2033,” he says. As 78% of companies worldwide now use AI—nearly doubling in just two years—the impact spans supply chains, sales, IT, and finance. “On AI Appreciation Day, we celebrate how AI is scaling operations with greater precision, resilience, and intelligence.”

India as a Global AI Steward
According to Nick Magnuson, Head of AI at Qlik, India stands out for its purpose-driven AI ecosystem, backed by digital infrastructure and data diversity. “Agentic AI is already transforming public services, healthcare, and financial inclusion,” he notes. “AI Appreciation Day may sound niche, but India’s leadership in this domain deserves recognition—it’s becoming a trusted steward of responsible AI.”

From celebrating creativity and boosting enterprise productivity, to neutralizing digital threats and redefining customer experience, AI is now deeply embedded into the global operating system. On this AI Appreciation Day, industry leaders urge organizations to not only adopt AI, but to do so ethically, securely, and human-centrically, because the future isn’t just about artificial intelligence—it’s about augmented human potential.

Krishna Rangasayee, CEO and Founder, SiMa.ai: “Artificial Intelligence has become deeply embedded in our daily lives, enhancing healthcare, improving mobility, supporting education, and driving innovation across sectors. While much of AI’s early progress came through cloud computing, we’re now seeing a critical shift toward AI at the edge, or what we often call Physical AI—bringing intelligence directly to the devices operating in the real world.

This evolution is vital for time-sensitive, mission-critical applications such as autonomous drones, driver-assist systems, and medical devices, where cloud reliance may be limited by latency, connectivity, or privacy concerns. Physical AI allows devices to function independently, enabling faster, more context-aware decisions, even in remote or bandwidth-constrained environments.

As AI continues to evolve, smaller, specialized models are enabling more localized and secure generative AI use cases, making real-time, on-device intelligence more accessible than ever before. The real value of AI will lie not just in what it can do, but in how it is applied to serve people and address real-world challenges in meaningful, equitable ways.”

Tiffany Chan, Co-Founder and COO, Pantherun Technologies: “AI has quietly become a part of how the world works, not in big, dramatic ways, but behind the scenes, helping things run smarter, faster, and safer. In cybersecurity, this impact is especially clear. AI helps spot threats early, respond quickly, and protect important systems without much noise. It picks up on weak points before they turn into problems and keeps learning from new attacks to get better over time.

In many ways, AI is strengthening fundamental protections in the cybersecurity space—it enhances threat detection, automates responses, and helps stay ahead of evolving attacks.

But with all its power, AI also comes with responsibility. As it becomes part of systems that shape our lives, whether it’s healthcare, security, or infrastructure, we need to focus not just on performance but on trust. Cybersecurity requires a balanced approach where AI supports, but does not substitute, human judgment, oversight, and ethical responsibility.”

Praveer Kochhar, Co-Founder & CPO, KOGO AI:”AI Appreciation Day is a good moment to pause and take in just how far we’ve come. In just a few years, AI has gone from a backend tool to an ally we actively collaborate with to make decisions, solve problems, and even shape strategy. It’s changed how we work, how we think, and in many ways, how we build.

Looking ahead, the future with AI feels even more promising. It holds the power to augment human potential and help us achieve in months or weeks what once took years. And with Private AI in the picture, some of the biggest blockers, like data exposure and security, are no longer standing in the way.

That’s exactly why we built Private AI at KOGO— to help organisations leverage the power of AI without having to give up control over their data. That opens up possibilities for sectors that have traditionally kept their distance from AI, like defence, healthcare, and BFSI, where AI has always been needed but never fully trusted.

India has both the talent and the urgency to lead in this space. And as the blockers are out, people can innovate without second thoughts. When human potential moves in lockstep with AI capabilities, nothing is standing in the way. What’s ahead is a kind of innovation we haven’t yet imagined, and I believe we’re just getting started.”

Padmakumar Nair, Founder and CEO, Ennoventure, Inc: “AI Appreciation Day is a timely recognition of how artificial intelligence has progressed from a futuristic concept to a foundational driver of transformation across industries. AI is enhancing healthcare diagnostics, streamlining supply chains, strengthening cybersecurity, enabling fraud detection, and revolutionizing how we process and engage with information. It empowers us to navigate complexity, discover meaningful insights, and make smarter decisions at scale.

At Ennoventure, we leverage AI to safeguard brand integrity through cryptographic solutions that are secure, scalable, and seamlessly integrated into product packaging. Our innovations help global brands protect authenticity and build trust with their consumers, no additional equipment required.

As AI continues to evolve, so must our commitment to ethical development and transparent use. The advancement of technology must align with human values, ensuring AI is used responsibly to support fairness, security, and inclusivity. Its true strength lies in its ability to enhance human capability, amplifying vision, accelerating action, and addressing challenges that demand precision and speed.

On AI Appreciation Day, we celebrate the ingenuity behind AI and reaffirm our responsibility to use it wisely. This is a moment to accelerate progress with purpose and shape a future where AI truly empowers the world it touches.”

Rob Newell, Group Vice President Solutions Consulting, Asia Pacific & Japan, New Relic: “On AI Appreciation Day, it is important to celebrate the significant progress made in recent years but also recognise that the AI race is far from over. APAC’s emerging leadership in AI adoption and investment means that AI is weaving its way into our everyday lives and systems. Organisations are using large language models (LLMs) and generative AI (genAI) to optimise operations, and AI agents promise to reshape our most common digital experiences. The value that organisations receive by augmenting human capabilities with AI are clear: there’s significant cost and productivity efficiencies that help businesses unlock new frontiers of innovation.

For organisations to integrate these AI tools and realise their potential, they will have to fundamentally rethink their technology architectures. Regardless of the size, all companies are facing the same harsh reality: AI tools are expensive to use, and the costs of building new AI-backed technologies are unpredictable. Organisations that win in our inevitable AI-enabled future won’t necessarily be the ones with the best ideas; instead, the winners will be those that have figured out how to effectively balance cost, value, and performance.

Despite the rapid evolution of generative AI technology, the fundamental questions underpinning the cost of AI are simple: How often do companies query an LLM and how much do those queries cost? By controlling these queries effectively and getting the most out of every call by adopting AI-supportive techniques such as retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and agent frameworks, companies can more reliably predict and lower their AI expenses.

Historically, observability has offered organisations the ability to detect and respond to anomalies in their systems and optimise performance. But with AI driving a revolution in processes and architectures, observability needs to evolve to keep pace and continue providing users with a window into their own systems and processes. New Relic research found that 39% of IT leaders in India regarded AI as a key driver for observability adoption.

Organisations need intelligent observability to rise and meet the challenge brought by AI. This next phase of observability will be preventive, self-healing, and autonomous, so that it can surface the right insights to the right person at the right time. AI monitoring tools give companies end-to-end visibility into their AI-integrated workflows, but more importantly real-time insight to troubleshoot, compare, and optimise approaches to using LLMs to improve their features or offer brand new experiences. This allows companies to adjust when necessary to manage costs, improve performance, and reduce common issues that can cause costly hiccups.

In the long term, AI will truly become ubiquitous when we can reliably achieve the right balance between cost, performance, quality, value, and reliability. Companies developing AI features need to identify the right use cases to get the most out of those LLMs while still delivering value and innovation to their customers.

Observability helps companies maintain reliability, quality, and efficiency throughout all components of the AI technology stack, alongside services and infrastructure, so that they have the data they need to make decisions that limit expenses, maximise ROI, and accelerate business outcomes.”- Rob Newell, Group Vice President Solutions Consulting, Asia Pacific & Japan, New Relic

Jitendra Kumar, Chief Technology Officer, Simplilearn: “At Simplilearn, we view AI as a powerful enabler of human potential. It’s transforming how professionals learn, upskill, and stay relevant in a fast-changing world. With the rapid evolution of the Edtech ecosystem, AI allows us to deliver deeply personalized, on-demand learning experiences that empower professionals to learn anytime, anywhere. We have created our own Simplimentor, an AI-powered career coach, supporting learners whether through career switches or upskilling in their current roles.

On AI Appreciation Day, we celebrate not just the technology but the people building and applying it responsibly. Our focus remains on harnessing AI to create adaptive, personalized, and impactful learning experiences, because the true value of AI lies in how well it serves human growth.”

Vijender Yadav, co-Founder and CEO, Accops: At Accops, we recognise Artificial Intelligence as a pivotal force shaping the future of cybersecurity. We not only acknowledge AI’s transformative potential but also reaffirm our commitment to its responsible and secure implementation. AI is revolutionising how modern enterprises manage identities, secure access, and detect threats in real time. At Accops, we are leveraging AI to power adaptive authentication, intelligent access control, and streamlined security operations — all tailored to the evolving demands of hybrid work and digital infrastructure. However, with these advancements come new risks. The increasing prevalence of deepfake-based attacks, especially those targeting facial authentication, poses a significant threat to digital trust. To address this, Accops has embedded responsible AI into its authentication platform. Our biometric solution, Accops BioAuth, now includes AI-powered deepfake detection, enabling organisations to detect and block synthetic identity fraud in real time. AI Appreciation Day serves as a timely reminder: innovation must go hand-in-hand with accountability. At Accops, we remain committed to developing AI-enhanced solutions that are secure, ethical, and future-ready — ensuring that AI acts as a force multiplier for trust, resilience, and progress.

Amit Relan, Co Founder and CEO, mFilterlit: “As AI becomes central to how digital ecosystems operate, it’s also driving the threats we face—from deepfake-led scams to hyper-personalized fraud. At mFilterIt, we believe the answer to AI-generated threats lies in AI itself—but only if it’s guided by the right guardrails. Accuracy isn’t enough. Transparency, accountability, and continuous validation must be built into every AI model we deploy. Because in a world where machines can mimic humans, brands need machine intelligence that can think deeper, trace wider, and act responsibly.”

Wahida Jabbar, Manager, Quality Engineering – Emerging Technology, Ascendion: “India is forging its own AI path—driven not by Silicon Valley startups, but by government-led initiatives like the IndiaAI Mission, which emphasizes solving real problems in agriculture, healthcare, education, and governance. This mission’s seven pillars—ranging from compute infrastructure and innovation centers to safe, trusted AI—are focused on making AI inclusive, impactful, and Indian at its core.”

Khadim Batti, Co-founder & CEO, Whatfix: “India is placing AI at the center of its digital future. Through

initiatives like IndiaAI Mission and Bhashini, the government is enabling responsible and inclusive AI adoption. At Whatfix, we align with this vision through AI that makes enterprise software intelligent, intuitive, and user-first. Our patented ScreenSense delivers adaptive guidance and automation, turning complex workflows into streamlined experiences.”

Manoj Paul, Managing Director, Equinix India: “India is not just adopting AI—it is architecting a national AI ecosystem. With over 34,000 GPUs committed and compute clusters operational, public infrastructure and policy are advancing hand-in-hand. The next wave of AI innovation will rely on scalable, interconnected, and edge-based digital infrastructure that ensures inclusive and future-ready access to AI.”

Prasanna Nirmal Kumar, Chief Credit Officer, axio: “AI is enhancing financial inclusion in India, especially when integrated with digital public infrastructure. With support from initiatives like IndiaAI and Digital India, we’re designing transparent, user-focused credit experiences. Responsible innovation, guided by ethics, is key to building a resilient digital economy.”

Enbasekar D, Co-founder & CTO, MediBuddy: “AI is becoming central to India’s healthcare transformation—bridging rural-urban gaps in diagnostics, monitoring, and primary care. Initiatives like the National AI Mission and Ayushman Bharat are enabling scalable, early interventions. A strong digital backbone and public-private collaboration are essential to realizing an inclusive, people-first AI-powered health system.”

Pancham Taneja, Country Head – India, Delta Capita: “AI marks a shift in how we manage risk and governance in financial services. At Delta Capita, we focus on augmenting human decision-making, not replacing it—especially in critical areas like KYC. India’s digital transformation offers a powerful opportunity to design principled, scalable AI solutions that blend domain knowledge with innovation.”