Category Archives: Technology

AI, Semiconductors, Startups, and Technology: Expert Insights on Union Budget 2026–27

Artificial Intelligence – Bruce Keith, CEO & Co-Founder, InvestorAi
“The focus on fiscal discipline and tax harmonisation is welcome. The emphasis on education in a rapidly AI-driven world makes sense. However, the increase in Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on futures and options—150% and 50%, respectively—may inadvertently reduce liquidity, as most F&O participants incur losses. Rather than disincentivising trading, education and AI-enabled guidance could be a better lever to address this challenge.”

Venture Capital Perspective – Ankur Mittal, Co-Founder, Inflection Point Ventures
“India’s service-led economy stands to benefit from AI-driven growth. The government’s focus on building strong AI talent is strategic, helping retain domestic talent, attract global tech investment, and strengthen the startup ecosystem. Startups like CTPL can play a pivotal role in executing this vision.”

Venture Capital Perspective – Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures
“Indian semiconductor manufacturing is nascent and needs policy support. ISM 2.0 and the ₹40,000 crore allocation for electronic components will strengthen the supply chain, enabling India to become self-reliant. Initiatives like Bharat Vistaar will enhance agriculture productivity using real-time AI and satellite data. The announcement of four telescope centres will bolster India’s self-reliant space research capabilities.”

Semiconductor Industry – Manu Iyer, General Partner & Co-Founder, Bluehill.VC
“The launch of India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 is transformative for technology and manufacturing. By supporting domestic semiconductor equipment, materials, and design, ISM 2.0 positions India as a globally competitive hub. Coupled with rare earth corridors across mineral-rich states, these measures strengthen supply chains for electronics, defense, and clean energy, driving high-skilled employment and innovation.”

Legal Tech – Hitesh Jirawla, Founder & CEO, Cubictree
“The government’s push to digitise courts, combined with AI innovation funds exceeding ₹10,000 crore, marks a quantum leap for Legal AI in India. This initiative addresses the ‘Iron Triangle’ of legal technology—cost, speed, and accuracy—establishing Legal AI as critical infrastructure for a developed India.”

Cybersecurity – Pankit Desai, Co-Founder & CEO, Sequretek
“Union Budget 2026 positions India’s digital economy as a core growth driver. The increase in safe harbour thresholds for IT/ITES companies—₹2,000 crore for domestic and ₹300 crore for overseas group entities—reduces tax disputes and compliance risks. Tax holidays for foreign cloud data centres enhance technological sovereignty. The ₹10,000 crore SME Growth Fund empowers adoption of emerging technologies, supporting India’s Make in India, Make for the World vision.”

The Union Budget 2026–27 lays a robust foundation for India to emerge as a global tech powerhouse, with focused investments in AI, semiconductors, cybersecurity, digital infrastructure, and skill development. Coupled with support for startups, SMEs, and high-tech manufacturing, these measures aim to foster innovation, build a resilient ecosystem, and strengthen India’s position in global value chains.

Budget 2026–27: India Poised to Lead as AI Drives Economic Growth, Says 1Point1 Solutions CMD

 By:-  Akshay Chhabra, CMD, 1Point1 Solutions Limited.

The Union Budget 2026–27 signals that India is moving beyond AI adoption to making AI a core engine of economic growth. A key highlight is the recognition of data centres as critical national infrastructure—a timely move that underscores the foundational role of digital infrastructure in an AI-led economy.

The proposed tax holiday until 2047 for global cloud service providers operating data centres in India sends a strong signal to long-term investors and hyperscalers. It encourages sustained capital commitment, accelerates large-scale infrastructure build-out, and strengthens India’s position in the global cloud, AI, and digital services value chain.

For AI-first services companies like 1Point1 Solutions, with operations across global markets and expertise in technology-led BPM and CX transformation, these measures create a powerful enabling environment. Incentives for cloud and hyperscale providers not only expand infrastructure capacity but also enhance institutional capability, talent readiness, and ecosystem maturity.

Together, these steps reinforce India’s readiness to lead responsibly in a digital- and intelligence-driven global economy. For companies with deep AI integration and global operations, this Budget highlights a clear reality: AI is no longer a future roadmap it is today’s operating reality, and India is ready to lead from the front.

Poonawalla Fincorp Deepens AI-First Transformation with Five New Enterprise AI Solutions

Chandigarh, Feb 01: Poonawalla Fincorp Limited (PFL) today announced the rollout of five new AI-powered enterprise solutions. The new deployments extend the use of artificial intelligence across strategic decision-making, customer onboarding, data quality management, customer experience analytics and application development.

These initiatives reflect PFL’s long-term vision to become a digitally fluent, data-driven, and highly scalable financial organization, with AI-first approach being adopted across functions.

Aligned with this direction, PFL has introduced the following five AI-led solutions:

1. AI-powered Competition Benchmarking Engine: This capability embeds market intelligence directly into how PFL prices, positions and competes. AI autonomously searches for market changes, analysing competitor pricing moves, product shifts and engagement patterns across portfolios, and converts them into timely, decision-ready insights. Built as an extension of the organisation’s AI-enabled risk hindsight framework, the system enables faster responses to market shifts.
2. Central KYC (CKYC) AI Platform: As customer onboarding scales, consistency and control become critical. The CKYC AI platform reframes compliance as a source of strength by applying AI-driven validation at the entry point, ensuring KYC data is assessed for accuracy and material relevance before it flows through the system. This reduces manual intervention by ~15 percent, and materially strengthens both accuracy and turnaround performance.
3. Agentic Data Quality Intelligence (DQI): As data flows across multiple systems and teams, maintaining consistency becomes critical. This solution automatically monitors data against defined quality standards, flags anomalies, and updates validation rules as requirements evolve. It ensures data used for reporting, risk and business decisions remains accurate, traceable and audit-ready.
4. AI-led Voice of Customer (VOC) Categorisation: Customer feedback is often rich but difficult to act on, at scale. This system organises free-text responses into clear issue themes and directly links them to accountable functions. Issues move faster, ownership is clearer, and recurring problems are addressed systematically rather than case by case.
5. Build Buddy for Accelerated Application Development: An AI-powered development assistant integrated into PFL’s existing technology stack. Acting as a “development buddy,” it supports engineers by assisting with code writing, suggesting fixes before code is committed, and providing contextual feedback on logic, performance and readability. The solution also enables automated refactoring, improving reuse, reducing development costs and significantly accelerating application delivery while ensuring adherence to development and deployment standards.

Commenting on the new developments, Arvind Kapil, Managing Director & CEO, Poonawalla Fincorp, said,

 “AI is more than a tool – it is reshaping how organisations think, decide, and compete. Our focus is on using it responsibly by combining machine precision with human judgment to strengthen trust and sharpen decision-making. By embedding AI across pricing, customer onboarding, data quality, feedback and technology development, we are turning insight into action and building a competitive advantage thereby laying the foundation for sustainable growth.”

At PFL, AI is continuing to emerge as a strategic differentiator and game-changer across core areas, right from risk calibration and fraud detection to marketing, compliance, HR, governance, audit, and underwriting quality assessment.

The company in this quarter alone has initiated 12 AI projects bringing the company wide total to 57 projects, of which 30 have been successfully completed. PFL continues to deepen its commitment to its AI-first approach, driving intelligent automation, accuracy, and future-ready innovation.

Jayant Chaudhary Highlights AI Vision for Education and Skilling at Google Forum

Shri Jayant Chaudhary Unveils Vision for AI-Driven Education and Skilling at Google’s AI for Learning Forum

Chandigarh,  Feb 01: Shri Jayant Chaudhary, Hon’ble Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), and Minister of State, Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India, today outlined the Government’s vision for integrating Artificial Intelligence across India’s education and skilling ecosystem at Google’s AI for Learning Forum held in New Delhi.

At the forum, the Minister announced a landmark collaboration between MSDE, Google Cloud, and Chaudhary Charan Singh University (CCSU), Meerut, under which CCSU will be developed as India’s first AI-enabled state university pilot. The initiative marks a strategic step towards operationalising the Prime Minister’s vision of a technology-powered Viksit Bharat 2047.

The event was attended by senior Google leadership, including Ms Preeti Lobana, Vice President & Country Manager, Google India; Mr Chris Phillips, Vice President & Global Lead for Education, Google; Mr Wilson White, Vice President, Government Affairs & Public Policy, Google APAC; and Ms Yolynd Lobo, Director, Government Affairs & Public Policy, Google Cloud, along with senior officials from the Government and academia.

Prior to the formal session, Shri Jayant Chaudhary interacted with CCSU students and faculty, engaging in an open dialogue on how AI can expand learning pathways, enhance employability, and unlock opportunities for youth in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.

Bridging Education and Skills through AI

Delivering his keynote perspective during a fireside chat moderated by Ms Yolynd Lobo, the Minister emphasised the need to break silos between education and skilling, highlighting AI as the critical bridge between classroom learning and industry demand.

“The vision of Viksit Bharat relies on converting our demographic dividend into demographic dynamism. For too long, degrees and skills were treated as separate tracks. AI enables us to finally connect them. Through partnerships like this, we are not merely deploying technology—we are building an employability engine that democratises access to world-class skills, irrespective of geography,” Shri Jayant Chaudhary said.

CCSU to Serve as a National Living Laboratory for AI-First Education

Under the pilot, CCSU Meerut will function as a living laboratory for AI-led institutional transformation. The university will deploy personalised AI tutors, AI-driven skill-gap analysis, and intelligent document processing to streamline academic and administrative processes. The initiative is designed to generate a scalable and replicable framework for India’s higher education ecosystem.

The Minister noted that CCSU’s affiliated colleges will immediately benefit from the pilot, with learnings intended to scale across 45,000+ colleges and 1,200+ universities nationwide. He also highlighted alignment with the Government’s ₹60,000-crore Model ITI Scheme, enabling vocational institutions to integrate AI-enabled curricula alongside upgraded infrastructure.

“This partnership sets a gold standard for the future of Indian education. CCSU is not just a university—it is a blueprint for institutional transformation, ensuring students in Meerut have access to the same AI capabilities as those in global technology hubs,” he added.

Strengthening Digital Public Infrastructure and Teacher Enablement

As part of commitments announced at the forum, a ₹85-crore (approximately $10 million) Google.org grant to Wadhwani AI will support the integration of AI tools into national digital platforms such as SWAYAM and Poshan Tracker, with a potential outreach to nearly 75 million learners.

Calling for deeper grassroots engagement, Shri Jayant Chaudhary urged Google to expand AI support to Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, emphasising that teacher enablement is critical to unlocking digital opportunities in remote and underserved regions.

India as the Global South’s Testbed for Inclusive AI

Highlighting India’s leadership role, the Minister stated that AI solutions co-created for India’s diverse linguistic and geographic context can serve as models for the Global South.

“When we solve for India, we solve for the world. AI tools built for low-cost devices and vernacular users are global public goods. India stands ready to share these ‘Made in India’ education models with partner nations across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America,” he said, reaffirming India’s commitment to Vishwa Bandhu—friendship with the world.

Google Reiterates Commitment to Population-Scale Impact

Ms Preeti Lobana, VP & Country Manager, Google India, said,

“Google is deeply committed to supporting India’s ambition to become a global AI hub. Through this collaboration, CCSU will leverage Google Cloud and Gemini to enable personalised learning, AI-driven career guidance, and institutional transformation. Our goal is to demonstrate how technology can unlock human potential at population scale and ensure every learner, regardless of geography, has access to world-class tools.”

Mr Chris Phillips outlined Google’s approach to responsible AI in education, emphasising learning science, productive struggle, and tools such as Gemini, Search, and NotebookLM, which were showcased during live demonstrations at the forum.

Building a National Blueprint for AI-Ready Institutions

Drawing from CCSU’s implementation, MSDE will develop a National Best Practices Framework enabling colleges and universities to self-credential as “AI-enabled institutions.” CCSU will also function as a Centre of Excellence, hosting structured knowledge-sharing sessions across the Ministry’s institutional network.

The forum concluded with a joint photo opportunity featuring Shri Jayant Chaudhary and Google leadership, marking a significant milestone in India’s journey toward AI-integrated education and skilling systems.

The collaboration reinforces the Government’s commitment to ensuring that every learner—regardless of background or location—graduates not only with a degree, but with future-ready skills aligned to the demands of an AI-driven economy.

Exide Industries Introduces AGMi – A Future-Ready AGM Battery Range for Advanced Passenger Vehicles

Kolkata, India, Feb 1: Exide Industries Limited, India’s leading storage battery manufacturer, today announced the launch of Exide AGMi, an advanced Absorbent Glass Mat (AGM) battery range for the Indian aftermarket, designed to meet the growing power demands of modern, high-tech passenger vehicles.

Exide AGMi offers spill-proof AGM-VRLA technology for enhanced safety, higher cranking power, up to 3X cycle life versus conventional batteries, and superior vibration resistance. The range is available across DIN 50, DIN 60, DIN 70, DIN 80 and DIN 95, covering applications from popular to ultra-luxury passenger vehicles. With this launch, Exide Industries Ltd. becomes the only Indian storage battery manufacturer to offer the complete range of AGM batteries.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. Rajeev Khandelwal, Executive Director – Trade at Exide Industries Ltd., said, “With Exide AGMi, we are bringing the advanced AGM technology to the Indian automotive aftermarket. This launch reinforces Exide’s leadership in advanced battery technologies that power next-generation mobility. He further added, “The India–EU trade deal is expected to spur growth in India’s premium car segment and this launch firmly positions Exide to address the said emerging opportunity”.

As start-stop systems, advanced electronics, and higher electrical loads become standard, AGM is the preferred OE technology for premium and next-generation passenger vehicles. Designed specifically for vehicles originally equipped with OE-fitted AGM batteries, Exide AGMi ensures optimal compatibility with modern vehicle platforms and electrical architectures.

Exide AGMi batteries will be initially available in the aftermarket through select channel partners in the top 10 cities, followed by a phased expansion.

Siemens Recognized as Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for QMS Software

Jan 31: Siemens has been recognized as a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Quality Management System (QMS) Software. Gartner, a global research and advisory firm, identifies Leaders as companies providing mature, comprehensive QMS solutions that support compliance, risk management, and process improvement across industries.

Volker Albrecht, CEO of Siemens Digital Logistics and Business Line Head, Digital Manufacturing, Siemens Digital Industries Software, said:

“It is gratifying that Siemens continues to be recognized as a Leader, reflecting our advanced, integrated approach to quality management. By embedding generative AI, predictive analytics, extended reality (XR), digital twin capabilities, IoT, and other innovative technologies across the entire quality lifecycle, we empower manufacturers to standardize workflows from design to manufacturing, drive operational excellence, and adopt best practices across industries.”

Siemens’ QMS software portfolio, powered by Teamcenter® X Quality and Opcenter™ X Quality, connects design, manufacturing, and operations to enhance traceability, standardize workflows, and support continuous improvement across regulated industries.

As part of the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio of industry software, the QMS capabilities integrate digital twin technologies, advanced product engineering, product lifecycle management (PLM), manufacturing execution systems (MES), and industrial IoT (IIoT) to optimize every stage of the quality management lifecycle.

Siemens’ recognition in the Gartner Magic Quadrant highlights the company’s commitment to delivering future-focused, AI-enabled, and fully integrated digital solutions that help companies of all sizes achieve greater efficiency, enhanced compliance, and continuous improvement.

Gartner Disclaimer: Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product, or service depicted in its publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner publications represent the opinions of its research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, regarding this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Genesys International Secures Guwahati Urban Digital Twin Project, Enters Assam

Genesys International Wins Urban Digital Twin Map Platform Project for Guwahati, Expands Presence into Assam

Mumbai, India, Jan 30: Genesys International Corporation has been awarded the Urban Digital Twin Map Platform project for Guwahati, marking its first project in Assam and an important step in expanding its presence across India.

With this deployment, Guwahati joins a growing list of Indian cities using Genesys’ geospatial-enabled Digital Twin platform to better understand and manage their urban environments. The platform brings together maps, infrastructure data, and civic assets into a single digital view, helping city authorities plan more efficiently, respond faster, and make informed decisions.

The Guwahati project builds on Genesys’ recent momentum nationwide and follows its work in Varanasi, where the Varanasi Smart City project was recognised with the prestigious SKOCH Award for its use of Digital Twin–based urban governance.

Commenting on the win, Sajid Malik, Chairman & Managing Director, Genesys International Corporation, said:

“The Guwahati Urban Digital Twin project is a significant step in our journey of enabling data-led urban transformation across India. Cities today require integrated digital ecosystems that bring together planning, infrastructure, and governance on a single, reliable spatial foundation. Our platform empowers city administrations to move from reactive management to predictive and informed decision-making. This project also aligns strongly with the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of a developed nation, where technology acts as a core enabler of sustainable and inclusive urban growth.”

The project will help Guwahati move towards a more connected, data-driven approach to urban planning and governance, reinforcing the city’s push towards technology-led urban development.

By enabling cities to manage infrastructure and civic assets through shared digital environments, Genesys continues to support practical, technology-led urban transformation aligned with the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of a developed nation, where digital infrastructure and data play a central role in sustainable growth.

With the Guwahati project, Genesys further strengthens its role in India’s urban digital ecosystem, working closely with city administrations to build future-ready cities powered by geospatial intelligence.

WaveX Invites Applications for India AI Impact Summit 2026

WaveX has invited applications from startups for participation in the India AI Impact Summit 2026, organized by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, from 16th to 20th February 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi. The Summit will serve as a key national platform for showcasing innovative Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions and fostering collaboration across India’s rapidly growing AI ecosystem.

As part of the Summit, WaveX will facilitate a dedicated Startup Exhibition Programme, enabling selected startups to showcase their AI-driven products and solutions to a diverse national and international audience. Startups operating in the AVGC-XR segment and working on AI-driven products will be provided with dedicated showcase and business networking opportunities at the MIB Pavilion during the AI Impact Summit.

The MIB Pavilion will serve as a central hub for showcasing cutting-edge and emerging AI technologies in the media and entertainment sector, enabling innovators to engage with policymakers, industry leaders, investors, and global stakeholders, and fostering collaboration across the creative and technology ecosystem.

The India AI Impact Summit 2026 is expected to play a significant role in strengthening India’s AI innovation ecosystem by facilitating structured engagement between startups and key stakeholders.

NTT DATA Signs Strategic Collaboration Agreement with AWS to Accelerate Enterprise Cloud and Agentic AI Adoption

London, Jan 30: NTT DATA, a global leader in AI, digital business, and technology services, today announced a multi-year Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help enterprises modernize legacy systems, adopt agentic AI responsibly, and scale innovation across industries.

The collaboration combines NTT DATA’s expertise in cloud transformation, cloud-native modernization, and Agentic AI with AWS’s scale and innovation capabilities, delivering tailored enterprise solutions that modernize mission-critical workloads, build secure cloud foundations, and drive measurable business outcomes.

Key Focus Areas of the Collaboration:

• AI-driven Large-scale Cloud Transformation: Accelerating migration and modernization of on-premises workloads to AWS, leveraging generative and agentic AI, automation, and data platforms to unlock new business models and intelligent operations.

• Industry Cloud Solutions on AWS: Delivering repeatable, industry-specific solutions across financial services, healthcare, life sciences, public sector, manufacturing, retail, and energy, leveraging NTT DATA’s Industry Cloud with 500+ extensible business components and AI agents.

• AI and Data Innovation for Managed Services and Client Experiences: Modernizing contact center solutions on Amazon Connect and driving AI-enabled customer experience (CX) solutions at scale.

• Digital Sovereignty and Regulated Cloud Solutions: Supporting European governments and enterprises through the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, delivering sovereign-by-design solutions that meet stringent data residency and compliance requirements.

NTT DATA has formed a dedicated AWS Business Group, aligned with AWS sales and delivery teams, comprising 11,000 AWS-certified experts, with plans to certify nearly 10,000 more over the next three years.

Abhijit Dubey, President and CEO, NTT DATA, Inc., said:

“Cloud and AI are central to enterprise transformation. Through our collaboration with AWS, we are helping clients move beyond experimentation to scale AI responsibly, delivering secure, industry-specific solutions that create tangible business value worldwide.”

Greg Pearson, VP AWS Global Sales, added:

“This collaboration enables enterprises to unlock the potential of cloud and AI, modernize operations, accelerate innovation, and meet evolving regulatory requirements, including through the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.”

Proven Success Example:
Honda Trading Asia successfully migrated to AWS with NTT DATA’s support, modernizing infrastructure and establishing a foundation for AI innovation. Somya Mayuraskoon, Director, Honda Trading Asia Co., Ltd., said:

“NTT DATA’s expertise ensured a smooth migration to AWS, unlocking new growth possibilities and AI innovation opportunities.”

Driving AI Innovation Across Industries:
NTT DATA will develop industry-specific, AI-driven cloud solutions across regulated and high-growth sectors, including:

• Financial Services: Modernizing core banking and compliance workloads.

• Healthcare & Life Sciences: Building secure AI-enabled data platforms for insights and research acceleration.

• Public Sector: Delivering compliant private cloud solutions for secure citizen services.

• Manufacturing & Automotive: Modernizing operations using generative and agentic AI for efficiency gains.

Innovation environments, including sandboxes and dedicated labs, will allow NTT DATA and AWS teams to develop, test, and scale solutions for enterprise adoption. This initiative also expands NTT DATA’s Smart AI Agent™ Ecosystem, enabling enterprises to deploy and manage responsible, business-driven AI at scale.

Palo Alto Networks Completes Chronosphere Acquisition, Unifying Observability and Security for the AI Era

Mumbai, India, Jan 30:  As enterprises increasingly rely on AI to run digital operations, protect assets, and drive growth, success depends on one critical factor: trusted, high-quality, real-time data. Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ: PANW), the global cybersecurity leader, today announced it has completed its acquisition of Chronosphere, addressing a core challenge of the AI era: the inability to see and secure the massive data volumes running modern businesses.

Chronosphere, a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Observability Platforms was purpose-built to handle this scale. While legacy tools break down in cloud-native environments, Chronosphere gives customers deep visibility across their entire digital estate. With this acquisition, Palo Alto Networks is redefining how organizations run at the speed of AI—by enabling customers to gain deep, real-time visibility into their applications, infrastructure, and AI systems — while maintaining strict control over data cost and value.

The planned integration of Palo Alto Networks Cortex AgentiX™ with Chronosphere’s cloud-native observability platform will allow customers to apply AI agents that can now find and fix security and IT issues automatically—before they impact the customer or the bottom line. AI security without deep observability is blind; this acquisition delivers the essential context across models, prompts, users, and performance to move from manual guessing to autonomous remediation.

Nikesh Arora, Chairman and CEO, Palo Alto Networks:

“​​Enterprises today are looking for fewer vendors, deeper partnerships, and platforms they can rely on for mission-critical security and operations. Chronosphere accelerates our vision to be the indispensable platform for securing and operating the cloud and AI. We believe that great security starts with deep visibility into all your data, and Chronosphere provides that foundation for our customers.”

Martin Mao, Co-founder and CEO, Chronosphere is joining Palo Alto Networks as SVP, GM Observability and comments:

“Chronosphere was built to help the world’s most complex digital organizations operate at scale with confidence. Joining Palo Alto Networks allows us to bring AI-era observability to a global audience. Together, we’re delivering a new standard — where observability, security, and AI come together to give organizations control over their most valuable asset: data.”

The Chronosphere Telemetry Pipeline remains available as a standalone solution, enabling organizations to eliminate the ‘data tax’ associated with modern security operations. By acting as an intelligent control layer, the pipeline filters low-value noise to reduce data volumes by 30% or more while requiring 20x less infrastructure than legacy alternatives. This is key to Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSIAM® strategy, ensuring customers can scale their security posture—not their spending—as they transition to autonomous, AI-driven operations.