Sonata Software has appointed Hariprasad Rebala as chief AI officer, giving him responsibility for the company’s AI strategy across its service portfolio, delivery operations, technology platforms, organisational capabilities and partner ecosystem.
The Bengaluru-headquartered technology company said Rebala will lead its end-to-end AI transformation and focus on converting enterprise AI adoption into measurable operational and commercial outcomes. His mandate includes developing AI-native delivery models and differentiated platforms with customers and technology partners.
Rebala brings more than three decades of experience across IT services, enterprise technology and startups. Most recently, he served as chief of AI solutions and growth at a deep-technology AI company. He previously co-founded Forfend, where he helped develop Internet of Things and conversational-AI platforms.
His earlier career included leadership positions at Mindtree, Capgemini and Wipro. Those assignments covered business scaling, industry-practice development and large transformation programmes, with particular experience in banking and financial services.
The appointment places responsibility for AI at the executive level as Sonata works to embed the technology across engineering, delivery and client solutions. Chief executive Rajsekhar Datta Roy described the company’s transition into an AI-native organisation as foundational to its growth strategy, citing Rebala’s combination of startup, IT-services and enterprise-platform experience.
Rebala’s remit extends beyond introducing generative-AI tools into existing workflows. It encompasses the design of AI-enabled offerings, changes to service-delivery processes, development of reusable technology platforms and coordination with external technology providers. The company has identified AI engineering, modernisation and outcome-based delivery as core elements of this strategy.
Sonata describes itself as a $1.2-billion-plus AI-first modernisation engineering company. It has more than 6,400 AI engineers supporting operations across India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Mexico, Australia, Germany and the Nordic markets.
Its client portfolio covers retail and manufacturing, technology and telecommunications, healthcare, life sciences and financial services. The company also maintains technology partnerships with Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Salesforce and Snowflake, giving the new chief AI officer responsibility for aligning Sonata’s internal platforms and service offerings with several major cloud and enterprise-software ecosystems.
The creation of a dedicated chief AI officer role reflects the expanding scope of executive accountability for AI within Indian technology-service companies. AI programmes now intersect with product strategy, delivery economics, workforce development, partnerships, governance and client transformation rather than remaining within isolated innovation or data-science units.
Rebala said his priorities would include developing platforms and capabilities jointly with customers and partners and ensuring that AI investment translates into business outcomes. His appointment takes effect as enterprises move from limited pilots toward broader production deployments requiring integration with existing data, applications and operating processes.
