AI is not the next trend—it is the next foundational shift after the Internet: Harnath Babu, CIO, KPMG India

In a rapidly shifting digital landscape, where AI capabilities are evolving faster than organisations can absorb them, Harnath Babu, CIO of KPMG India, offers a grounded yet visionary perspective on what truly matters. In this candid conversation with Express Computer, he explains how enterprises have moved beyond experimentation and are now deploying complex, high-ROI AI use cases that are reshaping business performance.

Harnath highlights a striking trend: AI models that could solve only 3–5% of coding tasks three years ago can now handle nearly 80%, dramatically compressing development cycles — in some cases turning two-year projects into 40-hour builds. He also reveals how Agentic AI is emerging as the next architectural leap, where business processes are decomposed into autonomous, goal-driven agents that work in parallel, transforming workflows like market research, cybersecurity, and invoice processing.

Some edited excerpts:

We’ve heard a lot of AI use cases today—mostly simple ones ...