BT Exclusive: AI is changing how India's CEOs lead, says LinkedIn's Kumaresh Pattabiraman

For India's top executives, artificial intelligence is no longer an experiment, it's a boardroom reality. Yet many leaders are still figuring out how to measure its real business value. LinkedIn's latest research shows that 84% of India's C-suite leaders now use AI inputs in decision-making, while nearly four in five say they are under pressure to move faster than they can effectively assess its impact.

That tension is redefining leadership in corporate India. Experience alone is no longer enough as executives navigate technology that is evolving faster than traditional playbooks.

"The pressure on leaders today is that they have to move before every answer is clear," said Kumaresh Pattabiraman, India Country Manager and VP, LSS Product, LinkedIn in an interaction with Business Today.

"It is no longer enough to rely only on experience or wait for a perfect playbook. Leaders need to keep updating how they think, what they understand, and the questions they ask."

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AI enters the boardroom

AI is increasingly becoming part of executive decision-making not just for improving productivity.

"AI is moving closer to the moments where leaders read signals, test scenarios, question assumptions faster than before and decide where the business goes next," says Pattabiraman.

Yet, he cautions that technology can inform decisions, but it cannot replace leadership.

"The final responsibility still sits with the leader."

That is particularly relevant at a time when CEOs are being asked to make high-stakes decisions even before all the answers are available.

Human judgment remains the differentiator

While AI can process data and generate insights at unprecedented speed, leadership still comes down to judgment.

"AI can tell you what the data suggests, but only you can tell which trade-off is right for your organisation, how a decision will affect trust, or what kind of company you want to build. That's where human judgment matters the most."

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He points to what LinkedIn describes as the 5Cs—creativity, curiosity, courage, compassion and communication—as the capabilities that will define leadership in the AI era.

"For business leaders, those are integral operating skills today. Curiosity helps leaders challenge assumptions. Courage helps them move without perfect certainty. Creativity helps them redesign work rather than just automate old processes. Compassion keeps transformation grounded in people. Communication builds the trust needed for change to scale."

From org charts to work charts

For Pattabiraman, successful AI transformation is far less about technology deployment and far more about redesigning how work gets done.

"AI adoption sits at the intersection of technology, people and leadership. The technology has to be reliable, safe and useful. People need the skills, confidence and trust to use it well. Leaders have to create the conditions for both to come together around real business outcomes."

That requires organisations to rethink long-standing structures.

"The structural shift I would advise CEOs and boards to make is to stop treating the org chart as the map of the business."

Traditional organisational charts define reporting relationships and ownership, but they often fail to show where capabilities exist, where decisions slow down or where work can be redesigned.

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"AI exposes the mismatch between how companies are organised and how value actually gets created."

Ultimately, the organisations that gain a competitive edge will be the ones that rethink work itself.

"Start with the work that creates value, then bring the right leaders, skills and technology around it. The companies that get ahead will use AI to reveal and redeploy capability, not simply automate the structure they already have."

CTO-CHRO: The boardroom's new power partnership

AI is also changing how leadership teams work together.

LinkedIn's research shows 44% of Indian C-suite leaders now view the CTO-CHRO partnership as the most critical relationship for building an AI-enabled workforce.

"Every choice about where to deploy AI has implications for skills, roles, workflows, trust and accountability," says Pattabiraman.

“If technology moves faster than workforce readiness, adoption stalls. If skills work is built without a clear view of the technology roadmap, it becomes too generic to change the business. That’s why CTOs and CHROs need to work from the same view of what’s changing, where the organisation is headed, and what people will need to succeed.”

The strongest partnerships, he says, go beyond rollout planning to create a shared operating rhythm, understanding which parts of work are being redesigned, which skills will matter next, where capability gaps are opening up, and whether AI is actually improving the way people work.