Aishwarya Shah

expert panel

As generative AI reshapes industries from media and marketing to software development and healthcare, one question is becoming impossible for enterprises, policymakers and technology providers to ignore: Who should benefit when AI systems are trained on human-created content?That debate has intensified as courts and regulators scrutinize how AI models are built, how synthetic media is distributed and whether creators deserve compensation when their work contributes to commercial AI products. Members of the Senior Executive AI Think Tank—a curated group of experts specializing in machine learning, generative AI and enterprise AI applications—say the future of AI depends on building sustainable systems that balance innovation with accountability, transparency and trust.Lawsuits and copyright disputes over AI training data have accelerated globally, while companies such as Adobe continue advocating for licensed datasets and provenance frameworks designed to verify content authenticity. At the same time, enterprise adoption of generative AI continues to surge, with a McKinsey study on the state of AI finding that organizations are rapidly increasing investments in generative AI initiatives despite ongoing governance concerns.The challenge now facing the industry is not simply whether AI companies should compensate creators, but how to build systems that make compensation, transparency and innovation sustainable at scale. Below, Think Tank members outline what that future could look like—from collective licensing models and provenance standards to creator opt-in frameworks, enterprise governance strategies and new approaches to trust in the age of generative AI.

expert panel

As multimodal AI moves rapidly from novelty to baseline expectation, companies are confronting a deeper challenge than simply adding new features. Users increasingly expect software to understand text, voice, images and video simultaneously, while preserving context seamlessly across every interaction. That shift is forcing organizations to rethink how products are designed, architected and differentiated.Members of the Senior Executive AI Think Tank say the next era of product competition will center less on standalone AI capabilities and more on orchestration, workflow intelligence and trust. Their insights arrive as major technology companies race to integrate multimodal capabilities into mainstream applications. Multimodal systems capable of understanding and generating across formats are becoming foundational to enterprise software strategy. At the same time, organizations are discovering that simply embedding AI into existing workflows does not automatically create better user experiences.Instead, experts argue, multimodal AI is changing the very definition of interface design. Products are evolving from static tools into adaptive systems that anticipate intent, reduce friction and collaborate more naturally with users. The insights that follow explore why multimodal AI is forcing companies to rethink everything from UX design and workflow orchestration to trust, memory and product differentiation—and what leaders must do now to stay competitive.

expert panel

AI tools are proliferating across enterprises at unprecedented speed. Yet implementation does not guarantee adoption. According to a McKinsey report on generative AI adoption, while organizations are investing heavily, many struggle to translate experimentation into sustained value. The gap is rarely technical—it is behavioral. Members of the Senior Executive AI Think Tank, a curated group of experts in enterprise AI, generative AI and machine learning strategy, agree: whether AI becomes a trusted decision-support system—or a tool employees quietly resist—depends largely on the signals sent by the C-suite. Executives shape consequence structures, model risk tolerance, determine measurement standards and define what success looks like. In short, employees learn how to treat AI by watching how leaders treat it. Below, Think Tank members share what C-suite leaders most often get wrong—and what they must do differently to ensure their organizations gain real, measurable value from AI.

expert panel

No longer confined to analytics dashboards and recommendation engines, AI systems are now initiating transactions, approving workflows, flagging anomalies and even orchestrating other software agents. With this sudden increase in autonomy, business leaders are left asking: Where should humans step back—and where must they stay firmly in control? According to a 2025 McKinsey survey on the state of AI, nearly nine out of 10 organizations now report using AI in at least one business function, yet most are still early in scaling these technologies and many lack robust governance and risk controls. As artificial intelligence advances from advisory tools to agentic systems capable of multi-step planning and execution, the leadership challenge shifts: defining not just what AI can do, but what it should do. Members of the Senior Executive AI Think Tank—a curated group of experts in machine learning, generative AI and enterprise-scale transformation—argue that the real issue isn’t capability but accountability. Across their industry expertise, they all converge on one theme: The boundary between human judgment and machine decision-making must be dynamic, evidence-based and anchored in responsibility. Here is how they recommend drawing—and redrawing—that line.