Sixth AI & Strategy Consortium – (February 2025)

In February 2025, the Srini Raju Centre for IT and the Networked Economy (SRITNE) at the Indian School of Business hosted the sixth annual AI & Strategy Consortium. Held virtually, the event drew a geographically diverse audience of researchers, industry leaders, and policymakers, all eager to discuss how artificial intelligence is shaping different aspects of decision making and the future of business.

The clear message that emerged from the consortium was that AI has become a force multiplier reshaping organizations, work, and society bringing both unprecedented opportunities and complex challenges.

This section highlights key insights from the four thematic tracks that structured the consortium’s discussions, illustrating how AI is driving change across organizational design, human collaboration, productivity, and broader ethical-societal domains.

Theme-1 focused on AI and Organization Design

Participants ask how AI integration is reshaping internal structures, task division, and workforce strategy within organizations. Discussion centred on the ways AI-driven automation and decision tools are prompting companies to redesign roles and hierarchies to best leverage human-AI strengths. A notable insight from Kinde Wubneh’s paper brought in the tension between innovation opacity and institutional signalling On one hand, firms often keep their AI innovations under wraps (or operate with “black box” AI processes) to maintain a competitive edge. Overall, the takeaway was that AI doesn’t just introduce new tools, it demands a rethinking of organizational design itself – from how teams are structured to how decisions are made – in order to capture AI’s benefits while maintaining trust and clarity in the enterprise.

Theme-2 - Human–AI Collaboration :

It focused on the human side of the AI revolution – specifically, how people and AI systems can work together effectively. Speakers emphasized the importance of trust-building with AI agents: employees and managers need confidence in AI recommendations and actions, which requires transparency, reliability, and training. Effective delegation to AI was another key theme, exploring how teams decide which tasks to hand off to AI versus which to retain under human control. As AI takes over routine or data-intensive tasks, humans can focus on higher-level work – but this also raises the issue of “capability shedding.” Participants discussed how, over time, workers might lose or de-emphasize certain skills because those skills are now handled by AI. This phenomenon could alter career development and training priorities, as organizations must ensure critical expertise is not entirely eroded by automation.

In sum, this track underscores that success with AI is not just about technology adoption, but about developing the right human capabilities, trust, and organizational practices so that people and AI can truly complement each other.

Theme-3 focused on Generative AI, Productivity, and Decision Making From technical promise to real-world impact:

It tackled the gap between GenAI’s technical promise and real-world outcomes. While GenAI systems are incredibly powerful in theory many organizations have found productivity gains are uneven. Many participants identified social factors as key influencers of this uneven impact. For instance, a company’s workflow structure or data infrastructure might limit how much GenAI can streamline tasks, and social factors (like employee acceptance, skill in using AI tools, or managerial support) greatly affect the results. Thus, merely having advanced AI is not enough. Businesses need to adapt processes and culture to realize AI’s benefits. Participants also discussed the integration of management theory with AI practice. Participants noted that GenAI could be leveraged to enhance decision-making frameworks and that classic management concepts such as decision sciences, organizational behaviour provide valuable lenses to understand where GenAI fits best. By aligning AI deployment with management principles, companies can better identify use-cases where GenAI truly adds value. The overarching insight from this track was a call for pragmatism and alignment: to bridge the hype-performance gap, organizations must align AI tools with sound strategy and human factors, ensuring that generative AI’s deployment translates into tangible productivity and smarter decisions on the ground.

Theme-4 focused on Ethical, Creative, and Societal Implications of AI Ensuring a human-centric and ethical AI future:

This track broadened the conversation to society at large, grappling with how AI is perceived and how it affects creative and moral dimensions of business. One segment examined cultural reactions to AI’s creative capabilities – for example, how different communities respond to AI-generated art, music, or writing. Some embrace these AI creations as innovative expressions, while others raise questions about authenticity, intellectual property, and the role of human creativity. Another critical topic was the value of substantive ethics in startups and tech firms working on AI. Rather than treating ethics as a superficial checklist, new ventures were encouraged to embed meaningful ethical frameworks from the ground up – addressing biases in AI models, ensuring fairness, transparency, and accountability in AI-driven services, and fostering an organizational culture that prioritizes responsible AI use. The participants  delved into AI-enabled labour market dynamics, exploring how AI automation and augmentation changed job roles and skill demand across industries. For workers, AI can mean both an opportunity that creates new jobs and entrepreneurship avenues) and a displacement that reduces demand for certain roles, and speakers highlighted the need for proactive workforce development and policy responses. In fact, the rise of GPT-fuelled entrepreneurship was a bright spot: accessible AI tools are lowering barriers to entry for entrepreneurs, enabling small teams or even individuals to launch AI-driven products and services. This democratization of innovation is energizing, but it also comes with the responsibility to guide such growth ethically. Overall, discussions in this track reinforced that AI’s march forward must be accompanied by ethical vigilance, creativity, and inclusivity - ensuring that technological advancement benefits society broadly and respects human values.

Conclusion - A Transformative Strategic Force:

Across all four tracks, the 6th AI & Strategy Consortium painted a comprehensive picture of AI’s dual nature in the business world. On one hand, AI offers powerful opportunities: smarter organizations, new collaborative possibilities between humans and machines, higher productivity, and exciting new ventures. On the other hand, it presents challenges - from reorganizing corporate structures and upskilling workers to managing ethical dilemmas and societal shifts.

The key takeaway is clear: AI is not just another technology; it is a strategic force fundamentally reshaping how organizations operate and how work gets done. As highlighted throughout the consortium, leveraging this force requires thoughtful strategy and leadership. Businesses and institutions that embrace AI’s potential while responsibly managing its challenges will be best positioned to thrive in the evolving landscape of work and society.