Diwakar Dayal MD & Area Vice President, India & SAARC, SentinelOne
“As India moves towards an AI-first economy, cybersecurity must be treated as a business imperative, not an afterthought. AI is creating significant opportunities for innovation and productivity, but it is also changing the scale and sophistication of cyber threats. Enterprises must move beyond reactive security towards AIled defence that can anticipate emerging risks and respond at speed. This requires organisations to consider security alongside their business priorities and ensure that their approach evolves as AI adoption grows.
The next challenge is securing AI itself. As organisations embed AI across business operations, they need clear visibility into data access, robust governance and accountability for how AI systems act. Greater autonomy must go hand in hand with appropriate guardrails and human oversight. Enterprises need to understand what information AI systems can access, how that access is used and where human judgment remains essential. Clear accountability must remain central as AI use expands across business operations.
India has an opportunity to build digital trust into its AI ambitions from the outset. Organisations that make security integral to AI adoption will be better positioned to protect critical information, strengthen resilience and innovate with confidence. The priority is to bring innovation, governance and security together, so that businesses can pursue the opportunities of AI while maintaining trust in how it is deployed and used.
