Why AI-ready digital cores must be built with purpose, governance and context
Leaders from Indian enterprises and tech firms at the ETCIO Annual Conclave 2026 emphasized that AI-ready digital cores require purposeful governance, clean data, and resilient platforms to drive business outcomes. Speakers like MongoDB’s Aamir Sait and Digi Yatra’s Siddharth Sharma highlighted decentralized architectures and self-sovereign identity as key to security and scalability in AI adoption.
Leaders from Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, Kotak Life Insurance, Digi Yatra, NSE, ICICI Bank, Google Workspace, and MongoDB discussed at the ETCIO Annual Conclave 2026 how cloud strategies must align with AI readiness, data quality, and business resilience. They stressed that AI cannot succeed without clean data, strong governance, and secure architectures, framing the digital core as a system of context and knowledge layers critical for the AI era. Aamir Sait, VP India at MongoDB, noted the evolving definition of digital cores, emphasizing their role as systems of context and knowledge in AI-driven transformations. Siddharth Sharma, Chief Innovation & Information Officer at Digi Yatra, showcased a decentralized architecture where user data remains on devices, shared only with consent, reducing storage risks and attack surfaces. Avinash Naik, President & CIO at Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, highlighted trust as central to AI-ready digital cores, particularly in insurance, urging enterprises to evaluate AI use cases based on stakeholder impact. Sourabh Chatterjee, CTDO at Kotak Life Insurance, said Kotak Life is building in-house AI capabilities to retain institutional knowledge and control, avoiding reliance on external systems. Hitesh Sachdev, Head of Innovation & Startups at ICICI Bank, observed that AI infrastructure in India will depend on GPU availability and cloud providers, though the country holds potential to leapfrog in AI applications. Shridhar Mahuli from Google Workspace added that agentic AI will reshape enterprise work by acting as an extended force for employees, improving productivity when built on strong data foundations. The panel concluded that cloud strategies must prioritize resilience, context, security, and AI readiness, with data and governance at the core of enterprise advantage. The focus should not be on isolated cloud models but on building digital cores that integrate these elements for measurable business outcomes.
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