Skills
About
Dr. Aditya Vikram Kashyap is a financial services executive and AI governance researcher and practitioner whose work focuses on institutional accountability, responsible AI, agentic systems, model risk, and the governance of artificial intelligence in regulated institutions. With more than a decade of experience at the intersection of finance, technology, and innovation, Aditya has led initiatives spanning enterprise AI governance, technology investment and transformation, regulatory-facing technology programs, digital transformation, and emerging technology adoption. His work examines how organizations can translate AI principles into operational governance as AI systems move from producing recommendations to exercising greater autonomy and delegated authority. His broader research interests include institutional resilience, technological dependence, emerging technology governance, and the relationship between AI infrastructure, regulation, and organizational accountability. His work combines experience in regulated financial institutions with research into how organizations can govern increasingly autonomous AI systems. Aditya holds an Executive Doctorate in Business Administration from Saint Mary’s University. His doctoral research examined how AI governance practices developed by leading technology organizations can be adapted for regulated financial institutions, culminating in the KARMA Framework for institutional AI governance. He also holds a master’s degree from New York University and a bachelor’s degree from Drexel University. Aditya is a Senior Fellow Affiliate at the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence at the Technical University of Munich (TUM IEAI) and a Visiting Senior Fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. His research and commentary on AI governance, emerging technology, financial services, and systemic technology risk have appeared through ISEAS, Forbes, CNBC, CNN and India Today. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET), a Fellow of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT (FBCS), a Fellow of the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (FIETE), and an IEEE Senior Member. He also serves on the Drexel University LeBow College of Business Alumni Board. His work has been recognized through professional and alumni honors, including Drexel University’s 40 Under 40 recognition and awards for leadership and innovation. The opinions expressed are his personal views and do not represent those of any affiliated institution, past or present.
Dr. Aditya Vikram Kashyap
Published content
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When an AI system produces a disappointing answer, the first instinct is often to rewrite the prompt. Add more context. Give it an example. Spell out the rules. Try again. Sometimes that works—but there’s a point where prompt refinement becomes a way of avoiding the real problem. If an AI system still struggles after repeated rounds of instruction, leaders need to ask a different question: Is the prompt actually the bottleneck?That question matters because AI performance depends on far more than the words sent to a model. The quality and availability of data, the tools a system can access, the workflow surrounding it and the model’s own capabilities can all shape the result.For leaders, the challenge is knowing when to stop tweaking and start redesigning. If the problem is the way work gets done, the answer may be a new workflow. If the system lacks reliable information, better data may matter more. If the task requires actions or specialized capabilities, different tooling or a different model may be necessary. And sometimes the right answer is to rethink the product or process altogether. Members of the Senior Executive AI Think Tank—a curated group of executives and practitioners with expertise across machine learning, generative AI and enterprise AI applications—share how they recognize those inflection points and what leaders can do when a better prompt is no longer enough.
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The AI industry has been celebrating increasingly capable demonstrations: a model beats a benchmark, an autonomous vehicle completes a route, an AI agent handles a task that once required a person. But a successful demonstration answers only one question: Can the technology work?Commercialization demands much harder answers: Can it work every day? What happens when it fails? Who is responsible? Can the surrounding operation absorb those failures? And do the economics still work when real customers are paying for the result? Nevada’s recent approval of robotaxi networks for Tesla, Waymo and Uber opens the door to thousands of autonomous vehicles operating commercially, and brings those questions into sharp focus.Members of the Senior Executive AI Think Tank bring perspectives from machine learning, enterprise technology, product management, data architecture, financial services, infrastructure, healthcare and design to this next stage of the AI conversation. Below, they examine what it takes to move beyond a working model and build a system that can withstand real-world complexity—from managing failures and infrastructure to earning regulatory and public trust, establishing accountability and making the economics work at scale.
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For many executives, AI has already become part of the daily workflow. They use it to summarize reports, find information, draft emails and work through routine tasks. But familiarity with the tools can create a false sense of fluency—and make it harder to recognize the gap between using AI and knowing how to use it strategically.Microsoft research involving thousands of knowledge workers found that generative AI can reduce time spent on tasks such as writing, information retrieval and summarization. But those individual productivity gains do not automatically translate into changes in how organizations make decisions or operate. Research from McKinsey similarly finds that while AI adoption is widespread, most organizations are still struggling to turn it into significant enterprise-level impact.The challenge, then, is not simply getting leaders to use AI more. It is learning to recognize where AI can change the work itself—and developing the judgment to know when, where and how to make that change.So what does genuine AI fluency look like at the leadership level? Members of the Senior Executive AI Think Tank approach that question from different vantage points, spanning enterprise technology, research, finance, retail, design and AI implementation. Their experiences offer a closer look at what happens when leaders move beyond individual productivity and begin applying AI to decisions, workflows, business systems and organizational strategy.
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For all the talk about AI making customer service faster and more personal, there is still a harder question to answer: Does the customer actually feel better served? An instant answer or perfectly timed recommendation may be useful, but usefulness is not the same as feeling understood. When a customer has a complicated problem, is frustrated or simply wants to talk to someone, efficiency can quickly become the problem.That tension is becoming more important as companies bring AI into more customer interactions. Customers are increasingly comfortable with AI when it saves time or effort, but many still expect a human option when the stakes are higher. The challenge then is figuring out how technology can remove friction without taking away the judgment, reassurance and connection that make good service feel like good service.In this article, members of the Senior Executive AI Think Tank—a curated community of leaders specializing in machine learning, generative AI and enterprise AI applications—explore that challenge from different angles. They discuss personalization and customer memory, where human involvement matters most, how AI can give employees more room for empathy, and how customer signals can shape better products. They also examine what it really means for AI to remember—and how leaders can tell whether an interaction leaves customers feeling understood, rather than simply processed.
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Open-weight large language models have become one of enterprise AI's hottest topics. Their promise is compelling: greater control, improved privacy, customization and freedom from vendor lock-in. Yet many executives remain focused on one number—the licensing cost—while overlooking the far larger operational commitment required after deployment.Members of the Senior Executive AI Think Tank, a community of executives and practitioners leading AI strategy across industries, agree that organizations should evaluate open-weight models the same way they would any other mission-critical technology platform: through total cost of ownership, long-term operational resilience and measurable business outcomes.McKinsey has emphasized that successful AI adoption depends not only on selecting the right models but also on building the data infrastructure, operating models and organizational capabilities needed to scale them. For enterprises adopting open-weight models, those ongoing investments can quickly become a larger cost factor than the model itself.In this article, AI Think Tank members examine the hidden costs and strategic considerations behind open-weight AI adoption, sharing how executives should think about infrastructure, talent, security, governance, maintenance and the business cases where owning and operating these models can create a meaningful advantage—and when the hidden costs outweigh the benefits.
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When OpenAI unveiled Jalapeño, its first custom AI inference chip developed with Broadcom, the announcement represented more than a hardware milestone. It highlighted a broader shift in the AI industry: the race to make intelligence faster, more affordable and more accessible at scale. As the cost of running large language models declines, product leaders face a new question—not simply what AI can do, but what products become possible when intelligence is inexpensive enough to operate continuously.For much of the generative AI era, product teams have designed around scarcity. They have limited model usage, shortened context windows, reduced reasoning steps and carefully managed AI interactions because every inference call carries a cost. But as custom silicon and AI infrastructure improvements drive down those constraints, AI can move from an occasional feature users activate to an always-present capability embedded throughout workflows. Research from McKinsey & Company estimates that generative AI could create trillions of dollars in annual economic value, but capturing that opportunity will require organizations to integrate AI into core business processes rather than treat it as a standalone tool.Members of the Senior Executive AI Think Tank believe the next generation of AI products will not simply be faster versions of today’s copilots. Below, they explore how OpenAI’s Jalapeño chip could reshape product design, unlock previously uneconomical AI applications and redefine the competitive landscape for organizations building the next generation of intelligent products.
Company details
Morgan Stanley
Company bio
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is a leading global financial services firm providing a wide range of investment banking, securities, wealth management and investment management services. With offices in 42 countries, our firm's employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, institutions and individuals. We are committed to maintaining the first-class service and high standard of excellence that have always defined the firm and everything we do is guided by our five core values: Do the right thing, put clients first, lead with exceptional ideas, commit to diversity and inclusion, and give back.