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Balkrishan Kalra on model risk

From From Pilots to Production: Who Owns the AI Workflow? CEOs of EXL, Genpact, FirstSource & Microsoft · March 17, 2026 · Zinnov

“Models don't drift suddenly; they drift gradually, so you must manage risk at the model level — whether the reasoning models or the models you have built on top — and ensure expert humans can understand the reasoning chain.”

Balkrishan Kalra

Chief Executive Officer, President & Director, GENPACT LTD

Policy Impact model riskmodel driftresponsible AIrisk management

On March 17, 2026, Balkrishan Kalra, Chief Executive Officer, President & Director at GENPACT LTD, spoke about model risk during From Pilots to Production: Who Owns the AI Workflow? CEOs of EXL, Genpact, FirstSource & Microsoft on Zinnov.

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From Pilots to Production: Who Owns the AI Workflow? CEOs of EXL, Genpact, FirstSource & Microsoft

March 17, 2026 Zinnov

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Less than 10% of AI pilots make it to enterprise-scale production. This panel explores what it takes to close that gap. Four leaders discuss real workflow-level AI deployments that are running at scale, the metrics that prove they work, and the structural barriers that keep most enterprises stuck. The conversation goes deep into outcome-based pricing, the Klarna cautionary tale, and what it takes to design human-in-the-loop properly. Highlights: — A UK retailer running AI across the full customer interaction workflow for 1,400+ employees — Healthcare denials management: 20% of claims denied, 60% never appealed, and how AI is recovering that value — "In the US, two or three large FSIs have about 300,000 agents plus" — more agents than employees — "Models don't drift suddenly. They drift gradually" — on responsible AI and governance — The three-people-in-a-room test for process legibility — Why "human in the loop verifying everything is really automation with extra steps" — Accounts payable going from human-processed to machine-processed after 30 years From the 7th Zinnov Private Equity + Tech Services Conference at the Harvard Club, New York. Panelists: Rohit Kapur, Chairman & CEO, EXL | BK Kalra, CEO, Genpact | Ritesh Idnani, CEO, FirstSource | Jacqueline O'Flanagan, Head of FS Americas, Microsoft Moderator: Vijay Kumar Hegde, Partner, Zinnov

About Balkrishan Kalra

Chief Executive Officer, President & Director · GENPACT LTD

On April 7, 2026, Balkrishan Kalra participated in a panel discussion titled "From Pilots to Production: Who Owns the AI Workflow?" alongside CEOs from EXL, FirstSource, and Microsoft. During the conversation, Kalra noted that less than 10% of AI pilots reach enterprise-scale production and discussed the challenges of moving from pilots to production in industries such as retail, CPG, pharma, and BFSI. He stated that applying agentic AI to an end-to-end process requires upfront consideration of process maturity, and that in many large companies, technical architecture is "a little bit in mess" due to acquisitions without integration. Kalra said that "agentic or AI is not a magic pixie dust that you just sprinkle and magic will come out." Kalra also provided an example from Genpact's own operations, stating that within finance operations, the accounts payable workflow had been "human processed, human validated" for 25-30 years, but that in the past year the company moved the entire solution to a "machine processed human validated responsible AI lab," which he described as agentic AI. He emphasized that an organization's "moat" has shifted to its people, who understand the brand and culture, and that technology and platform can be agnostic. He added that over the past two years, conversations have moved from guard rails and safety to full production deployments, and that a "chasm" is growing between leaders and laggards in AI adoption.

Profile compiled from Balkrishan Kalra's verified public interviews and appearances. See all quotes & transcripts →