This Cognizant executive says the $37 billion company is abandoning hierarchy and adopting a culture of accepting failure
Executive Ganesh Ayyar is also fearful of AI—but bringing employees and customers to the table about strategy has helped alleviate his anxieties.
- Cognizant executive Ganesh Ayyar says that AI will impact his company’s culture by removing hierarchy, driving experimentation, and removing the stigma around failure. He believes the $37 billion company’s workforce—around 360,000 staffers—will be powered by advanced tech.
Implementing AI into a workforce can come with a cost—it has spurred public backlash and fear among employees over losing their jobs. But an executive leading $37 billion business tech company Cognizant says AI is changing its culture in unexpected, positive ways.
“Ultimately we are going to have a structure where it is not hierarchical, so that the culture also permeates faster in the organization,” Ganesh Ayyar, president of Cognizant’s intuitive operations and automation, said onstage at Fortune’s COO Summit this Tuesday. “It’s a journey ahead. Are we there? No. But we intend to be there.”
The executive driving automation for Cognizant, which has around 360,000 employees, says the business has shifted from “human-led and human-powered,” to “human-led and AI-powered.” Ayyar has seen the resistance, fear, and uncertainty around the tech—experiencing some of the worries himself. But in order for AI to come into the fold, everyone has to be trying their hand with the tools.
“We really need to build a culture of experimentation, and we need to have a tolerance for failure,” Ayyar continues. “Not failing our customers, but failing early internally, because we are going to try things, and there are things which will not work. We really need to celebrate responsible failures as well.”
Overcoming the fear of AI and encouraging exploration
Half of the battle in implementing AI organization-wide is getting people on board, before the strategizing even fully takes shape. But convincing human employees to see the upsides of a majorly disruptive technology can be hard.
“Even I’m scared,” Ayyar said at the conference. “There is fear—fear of uncertainty, fear of [the] unknown, fear of ambiguity.”
The Cognizant leader went on to explain that being exposed to great perspectives has helped him overcome those anxieties. Executives are instrumental in drumming up AI strategies and rolling out the technology among their organizations, but Ayyar noted they shouldn’t be the only ones with a seat at the table.
“I believe senior leadership does not have a monopoly on good ideas,” he said, adding that employees and customers also need to put their two cents in. “The methodology which I adopt is co-opting them, rather than telling them what to do.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
