AI-Powered Digital Transformation: Highlights From Xebia’s Fireside Chat

The final day of the Gartner Application Innovation & Business Solutions Summit was marked by one of the most exciting events yet: Xebia’s Fireside Chat. Xebia welcomed digital leaders from Sephora, AT&T, and Corporate One to the stage for a discussion on how they are working through the current era of AI-powered digital transformation.

Digital transformation has evolved significantly in recent years. Five years ago, it meant digitizing processes, basic analytics, and improving clunky systems. But today, due to the evolution of platform ecosystems, rapid digital acceleration through COVID, and more recently scaled Al adoption, a new wave of digital transformation is converging over four domains.

As session moderator, I set out to understand how to extract value from those four core areas: Intelligent Automation, Applied & Generative Al, Cloud & Data Modernization, and Digital Products & Platforms. These domains aren’t isolated silos, they’re interwoven, working together to create a powerful force: Industry Digitalization.

At Xebia, we think of Industry Digitalization as the engine propelling this new era of transformation. It’s happening across all sectors, and it’s happening fast. Many AI applications are new to the game and the session explored how the banking, retail, and business connectivity industries are shifting their mindset.

Three standout leaders joined me on stage: Kartik Kumar, Head of Digital Engineering & CX at AT&T Inc.; Manbir Paul, VP of Engineering Data Insights & Marketing at Sephora; and Prashanta Pradhan, CIO at Corporate One Federal Credit Union.

After friendly introductions and brief icebreakers that prompted quiet laughter from the live audience, we dove into the heart of the session. Panelists agreed that AI innovation centers around three core topics: successfully breaking down silos, personalization at scale, and data democratization.

Prashanta highlighted the challenges that regional banks, who he believes are the lifeblood of our US financial system, face in their quest to remain relevant. Payment technologies are moving forward rapidly and customer expectations continue to rise. But, implementing cutting-edge solutions is difficult when data exists in too many places within an organization. The first step toward innovation is to collate your data. From there, mid-sized banks can build customer-facing solutions to compete with industry goliaths.

In retail, Manbir stressed customers are also at the center of the journey. When you walk into a Sephora store, personalization is critical to the customer experience, not only at the point of sale but in product satisfaction, ease of returns, and in building customer lifetime value. Sephora relies on AI to dissolve data silos that drive relevant experiences. But Manbir was clear about one thing. “Technology doesn’t unlock this,” he said. “It’s about how technology enables cross-functional teams to come together to create a better experience. This is a human-centric approach to personalization.”

For Kartik and AT&T, customers’ feelings about the brand are central to its growth and enduring legacy. In his career as a technologist, Kartik has often found that when organizations—particularly in retail—are creating apps, they are focused on conversion and turning a profit. But what they soon realize is that profit is secondary. Building a brand with a fanbase who is excited about your product and will advocate for your brand is the primary goal.

Ultimately, as more organizations embrace new technology, our panelists agreed that all investments should be in service of enabling better access to information across the organization. “Democratization of technology is critical to your organization,” Kartik said. “There is so much technology, availability of tools is not the problem. The problem is how you drive value across the organization with that technology. That only happens the more people you have involved.”

Be sure to follow Vipul, Kartik, Manbir, and Prashanta on LinkedIn for more insights.