Companies are integrating AI with human decision-making rather than replacing workers entirely.
HR leaders said AI, workforce data, and analytics are reshaping employee engagement, retention, and organisational strategy.
Executives highlighted agentic AI and interconnected systems as key drivers of future enterprise performance and competitiveness.
The dominant theme of the event, branded as “Connected Intelligence,” focused on combining AI-driven systems with human decision-making rather than replacing workers outright. Experts argued that companies are under pressure to use AI not only for automation, but also to improve planning, employee management, and enterprise-level decision-making.
Achal Khanna, chief executive of SHRM APAC & MENA, said organisations would increasingly compete on how effectively they connect workforce data, technology systems, and human capability. The remarks reflected a wider trend in the HR industry, where companies are repositioning HR departments as strategic business units rather than administrative functions.
Discussions on talent acquisition, employee retention, and workplace wellbeing suggested that companies are increasingly using analytics and AI-driven platforms to personalise employee benefits and engagement strategies. Sessions on mental health, financial wellbeing, and rewards systems framed employee experience as directly linked to productivity and retention outcomes.
AI’s role in reshaping business operations remained a recurring subject = where Krishnakumar Natarajan, Former CEO of Mindtree and Managing Partner at Mela Ventures, said that the challenges of managing workforce transitions driven by automation, while Manish Gupta, Group CIO, Aditya Birla Group, argued that competitive advantage would increasingly depend on an organisation’s ability to scale intelligence across departments rather than simply hiring talent or investing in software.
One of the more closely watched discussions examined the rise of “agentic AI” systems capable of initiating actions and making operational decisions with limited human intervention. Executives from Workday, Grant Thornton Bharat, Reliance Jio, and Cyient discussed how enterprises are beginning to move away from isolated HR software toward interconnected AI systems designed to improve organisational responsiveness.
