anual effort. And the ambition doesn’t stop there. AI has moved well beyond chatbots and into the corporate engine room – with GCCs leveraging the technology to drive far-reaching innovations. For example, Indian hospital chain Apollo Hospitals has adopted an AI clinical assistant developed with Microsoft that helps doctors gather patient data and generate insights quickly. “That is 20 per cent time given back to doctors. That is 20 per cent time back to patients,” said Puneet Chandok, president of Microsoft India and South Asia. Teams at the Bengaluru centre of Catalyst Brands, the owner of US department store chain J.C. Penney, are piloting computer-generated imagery to create product visuals and videos. AI could reduce the need to move inventory across the globe for photo shoots, said Nihar Nidhi, India managing director at Catalyst, adding Bengaluru is “at the nose of the rocket” in piloting such prototypes. Huggies diaper maker Kimberly-Clark, too, is using AI to speed up marketing processes, including an internal tool that helps identify and evaluate social media influencers to promote its products and expand reach. Drugs data to expense reports Denmark’s Novo Nordisk is deploying AI across critical parts of the drug launch process, including drafting regulatory documents, analysing safety data and supporting commercial analytics. That is in line with efforts from drugmakers globally, from Amgen to AstraZeneca, which are deploying AI to identify trial participants more quickly and cut the time needed to produce drug safety reports, potentially saving millions of US dollars. At IBM India, engineers have tied up with a top college and local authorities to introduce AI-enabled air-quality monitoring systems. IBM is also working with the government to explore AI adoption and help with upskilling initiatives. Workday India President Sunil Jose said the business software maker was increasingly working alongside global teams to build AI tools for payroll, hiring and finance operations. “For us, it’s no more about saying – hey, we’re part of that rubric where we’ll build a few modules in the Lego module. It’s about building the entire model together,” Jose said, underscoring the role GCCs play in large corporations’ operations. Reporting by Shivansh Tiwary, Praveen Paramasivam and Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru. Editing by Sweta Singh and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty. All courtesy of Reuters. Further reading: What does it mean to be visible in an AI-curated world?