Artificial intelligence is changing corporate innovation

Artificial intelligence is gradually moving beyond experimental projects and standalone automation tools. Companies are beginning to embed AI directly into business strategy, using it to transform business models, increase productivity, enhance customer experience, and automate complex processes, Wionews reports.

According to Pradipen Ojha, Chief Technologist at EPAM Systems India, companies are concentrating AI investments where the technology can deliver the greatest competitive advantage. Modern systems combine reasoning, forecasting, and content generation with enterprise data, enabling businesses to create new products and optimize employee performance.

Changes are particularly noticeable in healthcare and the financial sector. In medicine, AI is used for clinical trials, generating evidence bases, and pharmacovigilance. In financial services, the technology is applied to content generation, Merchant Category Code verification, and mapping banking processes.

From automation to autonomous systems

The next stage of corporate AI evolution involves moving from automating individual tasks to systems capable of independently planning and executing complex processes.

Multimodal AI combines text, voice, images, video, and sensor data to create more natural customer interactions. Simultaneously, agentic AI is developing — systems that can coordinate workflows, make decisions, and execute multi-step tasks while maintaining human oversight.

Ojha notes that competitive advantage is determined not so much by access to base AI models as by combining them with a company's proprietary data, accumulated knowledge, and industry expertise.

An increasing number of organizations are deploying so-called "digital workers" — AI agents capable of taking on entire functional areas. At the same time, humans retain control over results and make decisions in situations requiring expert evaluation.

However, the proliferation of such systems will also require infrastructure changes. Multimodal and agentic AI systems demand computing resources that can be dynamically allocated across various tasks.

AI shortens the path from idea to result

Mahesh Sharma, Senior Vice President of Data & AI Engineering at Bread Financial, believes that corporate AI is moving from the experimentation phase to large-scale transformation.

In his view, three important shifts are occurring simultaneously. First, AI must become part of everyday work, since access to the technology alone does not guarantee results. Second, artificial intelligence significantly shortens the distance between the emergence of an idea and its implementation: companies can validate hypotheses faster and move from concept to deployment.

The third change involves agentic systems. AI agents will be able to independently plan, coordinate, and execute long and complex tasks focused on a specific business outcome. This will allow employees to concentrate on strategy, creative tasks, and oversight, leaving operational work to AI.

At the same time, Sharma emphasizes, companies must determine in advance which problem they want to solve with AI, where the technology truly creates value, and who is accountable for the final result.

AI as a competitive advantage

Dinesh Parikh, Vice President of Product Management at Newgen Software, notes that the role of artificial intelligence is also changing. While companies previously used AI primarily to gain analytical insights, systems are now becoming direct participants in business processes.

AI is increasingly connecting people, processes, and technologies, enabling companies to transition from reactive decision-making to continuous and adaptive execution.

This does not necessarily mean replacing employees. AI can amplify specialist capabilities by relieving them of routine work and freeing up time for creativity, strategy, and solving complex problems.

Ultimately, the success of corporate AI will not be determined by the number of pilot projects. The greatest impact will be achieved by companies that can unite artificial intelligence, automation, data, and human expertise into a single system — and turn technological capabilities into measurable business results.