How IBM Consulting is reshaping enterprise transformation with AI, trust and hybrid delivery models

As AI matures from experimentation to enterprise-scale deployment, the fundamental question has shifted from investment to impact. Yet many organisations still struggle to translate bold intentions into measurable outcomes. In an exclusive conversation with Dataquest, Rishi Aurora, Managing Partner for IBM Consulting India and South Asia, offers a candid view of how IBM Consulting is helping enterprises bridge this gap by embedding AI, automation and trusted data across every layer of transformation. He reflects on the changing expectations of CEOs, the rise of hybrid consulting, and the new operating playbook taking shape across India’s digital economy. Excerpts.

IBM has been part of India’s technology story for decades. As AI reshapes enterprise priorities, how would you describe IBM Consulting’s evolution and the value clients now expect from you?

Clients come to us for work that is truly transformational, innovative and value driven. Over the past few years, we have supported the creation of several digital banks, strengthened finance and accounting operations, and scaled our partnerships with Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, Adobe, Salesforce and Palo Alto. We also run multiple security operations centres in India.

What has changed most is how central AI has become. A few years ago, AI featured in occasional discussions. Today, it is part of every client engagement. We are in the era of agentic AI and the older delivery approaches no longer work.

Our playbook now focuses on moving clients from investment to impact. It is not only about deploying AI but ensuring measurable business outcomes. With AI, automation and hybrid cloud, we see a strong opportunity to help clients lead in innovation, security and trust.

The consulting landscape is more multipolar than ever, with advisory firms and IT services companies competing for similar mandates. In this crowded market, what makes IBM Consulting’s approach distinctive?

It starts with people and clients, anchored in IBM’s heritage of trust, transparency and ethics. These principles are embedded in the IBM Consulting Advantage, or ICA.

ICA enhances our consulting model by equipping our teams with generative AI tools and platforms. This shifts their focus towards higher-value work, while automation manages repetitive tasks. It changes how consulting is delivered.

India’s technology spending is expected to reach around USD 160 billion in 2025, growing at over 11% year on year, according to industry estimates. In IBM’s recent CEO study, 51% of CEOs stated they are actively adopting AI, and by 2027, 84% expect measurable returns from their investments. This shift is accelerating the move towards hybrid consulting, where transformation is delivered through a blend of physical labour and digital labour. IBM Consulting is already operating extensively in this hybrid model.

You mentioned that AI is now infused into every transformation conversation. Can you share real examples of how this hybrid AI-plus-human model works on the ground?

A strong example is Vodafone Idea (Vi), one of IBM’s long-standing clients in India. IBM is helping Vi streamline operations, strengthen service reliability, enhance customer experience and accelerate digital delivery through AI agents, a unified DevOps model and deep automation.

Another example is from the cement industry, which has seen heavy consolidation. Multiple data sources and inconsistent production environments created significant deviations. We partnered with a large cement manufacturer to automate root-cause analysis using a GenAI solution on watsonx’. The platform analysed historical data, generated summaries and reduced investigation time from hours to minutes.

We are seeing similar AI-driven outcomes in customer service, talent management, procurement, finance operations and application modernisation. AI is no longer experimental. It is delivering ROI today.

Trust has become a boardroom priority as AI systems influence high-stakes decisions. How are you helping organisations operationalise trust in a structured way?

If leaders rely on AI for decision making, they must trust the output. This is where responsible AI becomes essential. It is a set of design, development and deployment principles that ensure AI systems are safe, fair and transparent.

IBM approaches trust through a clear set of principles that guide how AI systems are designed, deployed and governed. The first is explainability, which ensures that users can understand how a model arrives at an outcome. The second is fairness, which focuses on eliminating bias and ensuring decisions are equitable. Equally important is transparency, giving stakeholders full visibility into how data is used and how models behave. Privacy has become paramount in light of India’s new data protection rules, making secure handling of personal information non-negotiable. The final pillar is robustness, which ensures models are resilient, scalable and secure against vulnerabilities. These principles are woven into watsonx, IBM’s next-generation AI and data platform, and shape every AI programme the consulting team delivers.

For instance,watsonx, our next-generation AI and data platform, is built on these principles. It ensures that AI training, validation, tuning and deployment happen with trusted data and governed processes. Governance is at the centre of every AI programme we run. For us, trust and responsible AI go hand in hand.

India is central to IBM’s global operations. Can you give a sense of IBM Consulting’s presence here and the sectors where you see the strongest traction?

While I cannot share specific headcount, India is at the heart of IBM’s global strategy. We have multiple delivery centres and innovation labs in India, and a significant portion of global innovation is developed here.

We work across financial services, government, manufacturing, retail, telecom and the GCC sector. Our portfolio is broad and holistic, covering the full landscape of enterprise transformation.

GCCs in India are transforming quickly from cost hubs to innovation engines. What role is IBM Consulting playing in this shift?

We are not just helping build GCCs; we are helping transform them. GCCs have moved from being order takers to becoming decision makers.

We embed AI, automation and hybrid cloud into their operating models. Beyond staff augmentation, we deliver managed services and outcome-based programmes. Because IBM works with several Fortune 500 companies globally, partnering with their GCCs ensures consistency, quality and strategic alignment across geographies.

As you look ahead to 2026, what themes are dominating your conversations with CEOs and CIOs, and how are you aligning IBM Consulting for this next phase?

I see four major themes shaping the next 12 months. The first is the growing prominence of GenAI and agentic AI, which are rapidly shifting from exploratory pilots to becoming the core engines of enterprise transformation. The second is a sharper focus on hybrid cloud optimisation, as organisations look to maximise value from workloads spread across public and private cloud environments. The third is the rising importance of trusted, high-quality data, which continues to be the essential foundation for meaningful AI outcomes.

Finally, security is emerging as a non-negotiable priority. As digital ecosystems expand, protecting platforms, data and AI models is no longer optional but a fundamental expectation built into every transformation programme.We are also collaborating closely with our ecosystem partners including Microsoft, AWS, SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, Adobe and Palo Alto to jointly deliver transformation programmes.

These are the conversations shaping enterprise priorities in 2026, and we are aligning our consulting model to support this shift.