As generative AI becomes deeply embedded across industries, enterprises are moving beyond experimentation toward experience-led transformation at scale. From reimagining customer and employee experiences with agentic AI to enabling trusted, scalable innovation through robust operational frameworks, transformative business outcomes are being delivered through real-world applications of generative AI. Tune in as experts explore the strategic opportunities and challenges of scaling AI through strong ecosystem collaboration, highlighting how experience-led AI is shaping the future of business and technology. Featured experts Gina Fratarcangeli, Managing Director, North American GSI Leader, AI Ambassador, Google Todd Scott, SVP, Head of Alliances, Kyndryl US/Digital Transformation, Kyndryl
As generative AI becomes deeply embedded across industries, enterprises are moving beyond experimentation toward experience-led transformation at scale. From reimagining customer and employee experiences with agentic AI to enabling trusted, scalable innovation through robust operational frameworks, transformative business outcomes are being delivered through real-world applications of generative AI.
Tune in as experts explore the strategic opportunities and challenges of scaling AI through strong ecosystem collaboration, highlighting how experience-led AI is shaping the future of business and technology.
Featured experts
Gina Fratarcangeli, Managing Director, North American GSI Leader, AI Ambassador, Google
Todd Scott, SVP, Head of Alliances, Kyndryl US/Digital Transformation, Kyndryl
Tom Rourke 00:00
Hi, I'm Tom Rourke, Vice President for Design, Insights and Innovation here at Kyndryl, and you're all very welcome to The Progress Report. The world of AI, and in particular, generative AI can be noisy at times. Latest hot takes on emerging technologies and the pace of change, together with projections of the transformational impact of AI, can often be confusing. Pragmatic advice from those who are at the coalface, as it were, in the application of AI and in the real understanding of what it takes to implement AI successfully, can be very hard to find. I'm delighted to be joined today by Gina Fratarcangeli, who's Managing Director of North American GSI Leader and AI Ambassador at Google, and my good friend and colleague, Todd Scott, who is head of our Alliances in the US Digital Transformation here at Kyndryl. Gina, Todd, you're both very welcome to The Progress Report.
Gina Fratarcangeli 00:50
Thanks for having us.
Todd Scott 00:50
Thank you very much.
Tom Rourke 00:52
So, we talk a great deal about AI in all kinds of contexts, but one of the things that's becoming clear is that actually experience-led AI may be becoming something of a differentiator. And I wonder if I could just ask both of your perspectives on, you know, what does experience-led AI mean to you and the context in terms of the business you're doing today? So maybe, Gina, if I could start with yourself?
Gina Fratarcangeli 01:14
In the context of experience-led AI, right? The experience people are having is one that is AI-enabled, almost with an AI assistant, if you will, that's kind of everywhere along in the process, is really what I'm starting to see. So the environment that you're engaging in as an employee in your day-day job is gonna change. I think it's transforming the user experience and transforming the employee experience.
Tom Rourke 01:40
Is that differentiating in terms of how companies are attracting talent or how they are leveraging talent? What are the implications for leaders in trying to think about this differently?
Gina Fratarcangeli 01:51
Yeah, no, definitely critical on the impact of employees, and I think we haven't started seeing it yet, at least I'm not hearing the ramifications of it, in terms of what that looks like from a hiring experience. But I absolutely think as the war for talent increases, the younger generations are going to want to hear what tools and services they're offering, how AI is enabled and agentic experience is enabled at every level. We're seeing right now, from the Google perspective, that an agent-enabled enterprise search is really critical, so call it "enterprise search". Call it an "AI assistant". Really, very similar in terms of capabilities they're providing for employees. And I think what that translates to is we may start very shortly seeing employees show up for interviews asking about,"What does employee experience look like? What are my AI tools? Are you enterprise search enabled, so that all the information that is stored in all the systems around our enterprise are going to be accessible for me via an enterprise agentic experience?"
Tom Rourke 02:58
I mean, you're obviously watching the pace of change and quite a range of relationships with our customers across the US. What are you seeing in terms of developments around experience and AI in your work?
Todd Scott 03:09
It really is all about end-user needs and really being focused on real business outcomes. I think the more that that is driving everything, versus the technologies themselves. Our center that we just opened, which Google has played a role in doing some co-creation with us in Liverpool, I think is really going to be one of those things that starts to attract the talent that we want to have, so as we develop for customers. But yes, I do think that I can definitely see a day, I'm thinking about my children, and as they interview for roles, they have a different expectation, for sure, than I certainly did when way back in the stone ages, when we just had rocks and sticks.
Tom Rourke 03:10
I'm actually thinking also about the emergence of new skills. So, there's a view that perhaps that one of the new professions of the future, whether it's a designer with a greater sense of technical capability or it's a technician with a greater sensitivity to experience, are we seeing entirely new roles emerge or areas, if you are advising your children or grandchildren about what careers to pursue, what are those new professions? What are the areas to select into, to differentiate yourself?
Todd Scott 04:24
I still think that with all this that's going on, especially in the AI space, that security is still going to be it's going to be more important than it was before. Because we're talking about data, we still have to have ways of protecting this data, protecting perhaps some capabilities or information that a company is going to be able to produce that's going to distinguish them from their competitors. So I don't see security and or resiliency and governance models, etc. I don't see that going anywhere that's just going to become even even more enhanced, and everything else is a delivery mechanism. Cloud as a delivery mechanism of that, having network capability is a delivery mechanism of all of that.
Tom Rourke 05:05
I think there are also some big questions around, actually, the very nature of work, and what AI will change in terms of, you know, is this the case of that AI empowers an old fashioned phrase, like a super user, or is that AI is primarily around removing more routine tasks? I mean, what are we seeing in terms of the impact of AI on the very nature of work, and certainly, what we might have traditionally called white-collar work? Are we seeing big trends there?
Gina Fratarcangeli 05:30
We're just starting on that journey. And from the, again, the user experience, the employee experience, it's very quickly starting to go from use case adaptation: Can it help me do this a little bit more effectively? Can I put in this data, this information, these reports, these summaries, and ask them to consolidate them and analyze them for me? So, it is quickly moving up the food chain from enabler to a doer. The technology will move up the food chain, and then the human in the loop, experience will become more and more strategic, as the human in the loop empowers the AI to do more and more.
Tom Rourke 06:11
Todd, you talked about your daughter's education. I mean, I worked with somebody recently in Saudi where this guy was describing that he believes that his children's experience of education would be so radically different from his own, and he's a relatively young man. But I think it's an important question about is, you know, when we talk about the humans moving up the food chain, are there interesting questions now about, actually, how those humans prepare and educate themselves and will be educated in the future to play that role as the responsible adult, for want of a better phrase, with AI? Todd, maybe, what are your thoughts on how you're seeing that evolve?
Todd Scott 06:47
Firstly, I think that it's going to be really important that companies, as they go down this journey, that they think not just technology implementation, as we alluded to earlier, but culturally how this is going to change. They've got to paint a picture for their employees that, "Hey, what you're working on, if it's customer service related, how this helps our customers, here's how it helps the business." Things are going to change for employees. So, having a roadmap, "Here's what we're going to need you to get to, from an education standpoint," is really important. I hear this from customers all the time. That's their big fear. It's they don't know how to go through the transformation process, if you will, for everyone. I think for people who are younger, I think it's just gonna be a natural part of what they do. I don't think they'll even think about it. I don't think that they're gonna have to make as big a change. But just like everything else, we've all had to transform and change how we go about our work. I've been in the workforce for 37 years, and how we used to communicate with clients, and what we used to talk about is completely different now. We used to talk about bits and bytes, memory, storage, etc. Now we talk about business outcomes. Everyone's got to continue to evolve, but I think that as AI becomes more and more prevalent, and regardless of the industry, if you're not painting the picture, the bigger picture for the employees, it's not going to come together. You're not going to get the full realization or value that you want to get. And quite frankly, if you don't paint that picture, there could be some inherent barriers.
Gina Fratarcangeli 08:30
You know, something super interesting I'm starting to see just as I spent a lot of time with the universities, and my son's a sophomore at the University of Michigan Business School, and he was all excited, because they just got their course selection list out, and one of the things that came out was the opportunity to now take AI classes within the business school. So the curriculum is changing, so the leaders who are in roles need to really think about what that's going to look like. And I really encourage folks to think about just looking at their end to end workflows. Really start thinking about how you can compartmentalize all the tasks within your workflow, and as you look at that individual task, can you use AI to do that task? Can you use AI to optimize or replace the human in that process? Then how do we think agentically, to string that experience together in what we call an agentic workflow? So I think there's that aspect of how you really need to think about the functions being performed. These are not going to be IT projects. These are going to be operating model transformations, where you're going to need technology, finance, the sales ops strategy people, all together, legal, really thinking through the experiences, how you think about what access the different employees get, and how you agentify your entire workflow and the worker experience.
Tom Rourke 09:55
What are the organizations, Gina, that you're working with that seem to be have successfully crossed over that threshold and moved from proofs of concept into really scalable applications of AI?
Gina Fratarcangeli 10:06
Yeah, no, it's a great question. It's the ones who start and think about it programmatically, and they start before they do any POCs, think about and prioritize those POCs. I, at the most basic level, encourage people to put them on a chart of ease of deployment and amount of impact. You don't want a proof of concept. You really want a proof of value. If this works, what is the value it's going to generate? So you start thinking about the long term effects of that. But more importantly, it's working with a very strong partner, like a Kyndryl who has the technology skills, who has the business development skills to think about what it's going to take to deploy that at scale.
Todd Scott 10:47
I think there's two types of business cases. There's the ones that enhance what you already do today. So how AI will do that. And then there are the business cases that are a little bit more out there, and that's giving you a capability you currently don't have, and I think being able to map back how that's going to be justified, or the value that you're expecting to make the decision as to how you move forward if you have misalignment, then what you wind up having is a bunch of projects. And there's zero value tied to it, and then someone in the C-suite is saying, "I'm not sure I understand why we spend any money on this, or why I would spend any more money." And it happens time and time again. If we just look at some of the prior technology rollouts that we've had over the last several years, that's always the disconnect. The disconnect is that it's not tied to the true business value is more tied to, "Can I get the zeros and ones to line up?" And it's a technology exercise, and that's not what this should be about.
Tom Rourke 11:50
As we entered 2025, generative AI specifically, was kind of dominating the conversation, and all the variations on that and DeepSeek. Is there a better understanding now among leadership and stakeholders in terms of different forms of AI applied to different purposes, or is there still a challenge in getting people beyond the hype and into real insight and understanding?
Gina Fratarcangeli 12:11
So I typically don't get concerned or encourage CXOs to be too concerned about the technology and the speed at which the LLMs and all the supporting functions of AI and agentic technology work. It is changing at such an insane speed that I really encourage folks to focus, enterprise level CXOs, focus on your business outcomes that you're trying to drive, hold your technology teams accountable for selecting the best technology like you do across any of your other decision making things, because that landscape is changing so fast. I probably listen to 20 hours of podcasts in terms of what is happening in AI and the technology landscape. It is moving so fast. Just Google alone, the volume of products we're putting out, I think we had 4000 products, AI product oriented announcements, in the month of March. The volume is insane, so I think focus on the enterprise, business-level outcomes you wanna drive, and then hold your technology teams accountable for selecting the right technology tools to deliver them is what I would encourage folks right now, because the landscape is the Wild West.
Tom Rourke 13:22
One of the phenomenons we occasionally see is that the sheer pace of change can actually be a reason why people sit it out, waiting to sort of see, does the thing stabilize, right? And views differ. I think my own view is, and I've seen a lot of consistencies, is people do need to actually jump in that I think the only way to get your head around it is to actually be active in the space. But do you see that phenomenon where at least some leaders, they get the broad idea that there's value here, but they're actually standing on the sidelines, waiting for the moment? Are there risks around that? Furthermore, are we seeing people really are jumping in and embracing the application of these technologies?
Gina Fratarcangeli 13:57
You know, we track metrics right now and got about 40,000 AI use cases underway. How they're marching, kind of through the process there is very much starting at the enterprise, internal use case level. Programmatically, I would say, make sure your house is in order from the data, from an operations side, before you get started on that. And then start dipping your toes in the water to the internal use cases is what I encourage folks and what we're seeing the volume, how they can accelerate market material creation, how they can increase the customization, the personalization. That's just a huge one that used to be incredibly expensive for firms to do, and with AI, you can really create one to one communication pathways and messaging in a way that was cost prohibitive before.
Tom Rourke 14:51
Todd, do you have a view on what is distinguishing the leaders, and I guess, less at an organizational level, more at the human level, what's making the difference in terms of the barriers? What are the challenges people are encountering? How might they consider overcoming them if they're really going to embrace this?
Todd Scott 15:07
Two of the items we've talked about already, one being the economics in the business case, and how it ties out to creating either new capabilities or enhancing what you already do. I think that's still a gap. And I think the other piece of it is making sure that you have the ability to include everyone in the ecosystem along the way. So yes, you want to have business leaders that are involved in buying into the project as well, but the employees who are going to be either gaining new capabilities or enhance capabilities or may need to be retrained. I oftentimes will say to, and in fact, I said it to a customer earlier today when they were telling me about their leadership that's involved with a particular project that we're working on, I said to them, I said, "I don't see anyone from HR, from the CHR office." And I said, "Well, if this is going to impact your people, you want to make sure that they understand the transformation has to go all the way throughout the entire organization." So that can be a stumbling block.
Gina Fratarcangeli 16:09
And again, that goes back to making your advisory council have people with lots of experience and people with very little experience, because they won't have the barriers of all the war scars of having gone through things in the past to be influencing you and thinking creatively.
Todd Scott 16:24
And I would add the sentence of how technology can potentially help you to realize or enhance or change those business processes. So it's one thing to understand the supply chain. Who all the players are, etc. But do they think about how technology can make them even more efficient? Same thing with finance, same thing with HR. I would submit they probably don't consistently think about that. But if you get the challenge from the CEO or the challenge from the board to do so, I think that's where real magic happens.
Tom Rourke 17:01
So as we look forward, I mean, we are The Progress Report, and one of the things we like to think about is in terms of, what's progress look like in this field? Of all fields, trying to make a prediction that runs more than six weeks is probably quite extreme, but if you were to look forward, Gina, and your expectations for the field, what do you think real progress looks like over the next six to 18 months?
Gina Fratarcangeli 17:23
I think, what does the future look like? I'm gonna take a little bit of a Pollyanna optimistic approach, but I think that as you look at the future, it is incredibly bright with the opportunities, and I'm incredibly optimistic, and candidly, just very excited about what a worker's experience is gonna look like in the future. Most listeners are in the same boat as me, where you're going through things, and you're going through your tasks, and you say, "Hmm, if I plug that into Gemini, could that help me do it more efficiently?" And the things, the data collection, early drafting, the corrections of my drafts, all of those experiences that used to take so many hours can now be done in seconds. The worker of the future is gonna be a super-powered worker who has so many more tools at their availability to do their job so they can focus on the thinking, and that's what's fun and challenging and thinking of the art of the possible. And when you clear your desk of having to do the grunt work, it's just going to be limitless in terms of what they can do.
Todd Scott 18:26
I'm looking forward to enhancement and the journey to get there. And what that means is those more thoughtful discussions with the C-suite, and you have success with project one, project two, and then there's a string. A model, where the customer's saying, "We're going to go from A to Z, or A to L, and here's the timeline that we're going to put in place." And it's all interconnected. It's not standoff or standalone projects, but it's really all about full capabilities across the landscape, and how you can paint that picture, not just from a business outcome standpoint, but how it really is. As Gina alluded to or spoke about very vividly, enhances the employee experience. Super powerful. If you had asked me this question nine months ago, I would have said, "I'm not really sure." I honestly would have said, "I'm not really sure." But I really do think that we're on the cusp of something that's really going to be exciting. And we're going to see pretty much every project that we're engaged in, AI is going to be part of it.
Tom Rourke 19:32
I think it's clear from today's discussion that irrespective of the pace and nature of the technological developments concerning AI, there are some fundamentals that remain the same, and there's a real opportunity here for people to take a breath and use methods such as design thinking and design, but also deep knowledge of how industries and businesses work to make more effective use of AI. Gina, Todd, thank you so much for contributing to another fascinating discussion of The Progress Report. Thank you both.
Gina Fratarcangeli 19:58
Thank you for having us.
Tom Rourke 19:59
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