Niraj Kumar on How Enterprises Can Move AI from Experimentation to Impact

AI thrives on high-quality, accessible data, but many organizations are still grappling with legacy systems. In your view, what are the foundational shifts enterprises need to truly modernize their data and unlock AI’s full potential?

AI is driving huge change for enterprises, but the truth is, many still aren’t getting consistent value from it. And it’s not because they lack ambition – it’s usually because of how their data is managed. Too often, data sits in silos or gets stuck in old systems that don’t talk to each other. In that kind of setup, no AI model can deliver insights you can really trust.

The shift happens when companies start treating data as a shared asset. That means systems that actually connect, cloud-ready infrastructure, and strong quality checks built in from the start. When those pieces are in place, AI suddenly becomes reliable, not experimental.

And there’s another part people sometimes overlook: accountability. If data ownership lives only inside IT, progress slows down. The companies moving fastest are the ones where business and technology teams share the responsibility, speak the same language about data, and build trust through transparency. That’s the alignment that makes AI deliver decisions you can count on – and the kind of innovation that lasts.

While large language models dominate headlines, enterprise leaders often seek more than just generic intelligence. How do you see the role of context-aware, domain-specific AI evolving in real business scenarios?

Large language models grab all the headlines right now, but if you talk to enterprise leaders, many will tell you the same thing: they’re powerful, yes, but they don’t always fit the realities of complex business environments. Off-the-shelf models often need a lot of tweaking, constant manual effort, and that slows down the value they actually deliver.

That’s why we’re seeing a shift toward platforms that bring in context and domain-specific intelligence. Instead of just crunching data, these platforms understand it in the language of the business – how data connects, what it means, and how it flows across fragmented systems. That context turns raw information into knowledge that can guide real decisions, not just generate outputs.

And here’s the big differentiator: adaptability. The best systems don’t just run once and stop. They watch performance, pick up on tiny shifts in data, and validate outputs in real time. Combine that with cloud-native deployment, and suddenly you’ve got AI that’s not just powerful but precise, trusted, and ready for day-to-day business.

Bridging the gap between raw data and a production-ready AI model remains a hurdle for many. What are some of the hidden challenges in this journey, and what practices can help teams move from experimentation to scaled deployment?

Taking raw data and turning it into a production-ready AI model sounds straightforward, but it’s a lot harder than it looks. In fact, many organizations underestimate just how many moving parts are involved. You’ve got data acquisition, cleansing, feature engineering, training, validation, deployment – and at every stage, there are risks, delays, or handoff issues that can derail even the best projects before they ever scale.

A big reason is that so much of this process is still manual. Teams spend huge amounts of time preparing data, generating synthetic datasets, validating results, and handling deployment – and with all that manual work, mistakes creep in. That not only slows progress but also leads to inconsistent results, which makes people lose confidence in the system.

The way to break through is by weaving automation into the entire pipeline, but doing it with transparency and control. If you’ve got continuous monitoring, real-time validation, and strong governance in place from the beginning, you don’t just speed things up – you create a foundation for AI that scales reliably and stands up under real-world pressure.

With the rise of deterministic and autonomous AI agents, decision-making is no longer just reactive-it’s predictive and self-driven. How do these intelligent agents change the way we think about user productivity and enterprise agility?

Autonomous AI agents are really changing the game when it comes to enterprise productivity and agility. Decision-making isn’t just reactive anymore – it’s becoming predictive and, in many cases, self-driven. Instead of having people manage every step, these agents step in, understand the context, and run complex workflows on their own.

Think about tasks like evaluating infrastructure, modernizing old applications, safeguarding data integrity, generating synthetic datasets, or even deploying specialized AI models. Those used to take tons of manual effort. Now, agents can handle them automatically, which speeds things up and keeps processes consistent, even as conditions shift.

The real value, though, is in how they never stop learning. They continuously monitor, optimize, and adjust in real time. That means teams spend less time putting out fires and more time focusing on strategy and innovation. For enterprises, that translates into agility – the ability to respond faster to market changes – and ultimately, smarter, more confident decision-making.

Niraj Kumar
Niraj Kumar
Chief Technology Officer
Onix
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this feature article are of the author. This is not meant to be an advisory to purchase or invest in products, services or solutions of a particular type or, those promoted and sold by a particular company, their legal subsidiary in India or their channel partners. No warranty or any other liability is either expressed or implied.
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