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Executives and industry leaders during a panel on "Geopolitics, Agentic AI, and Gen Z talent rewriting the growth playbook" at the ET House in Davos
To stay ahead in an era of constant disruption, companies will need to prioritise agility, attract and retain young talent, and invest in building new products and intellectual property for long-term growth, said executives and industry leaders during a panel on "Geopolitics, Agentic AI, and Gen Z talent rewriting the growth playbook" at the ET House in Davos on Monday.
Swiggy's food marketplace chief executive Rohit Kapoor said while generative AI has the potential to be transformative, the listed Indian company is cautious about making long-term budget commitments to any single GenAI solution.
"There are hundreds of providers of GenAI support, software or tools. I don't think winners are visible at all right now. What is visible is people who are ahead of others in terms of the impact and the clarity they bring...And hence it's very difficult, and not even prudent now to do any long-term contracts," he said.
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Echoing Kapoor's views, consulting firm Deloitte South Asia chief executive Romal Shetty said that less than a quarter of companies have implemented AI at an enterprise scale, with most companies are still in pilot mode. "The big question that enterprises are asking is not to do so much with cost but to do with someone disrupting their business model completely and them being out of circulation," Shetty said.
Executives noted that the growth playbook for global businesses is being reshaped by the convergence of geopolitics, energy and AI, with structural shifts now driven as much by economics as by policy.
Sumant Sinha, founder and chief executive of renewable energy company ReNew, said the global slowdown in climate rhetoric has not altered the trajectory of clean energy adoption. Sinha argued that renewable energy has crossed a critical commercial threshold, creating a sharp geopolitical divide. "There are two kinds of states that are emerging very clearly, " he said. "There are those states that are what you might call the petro states... and there are a lot of other electro states like India and China, Europe, which don't have a lot of fossil fuels."
That divide, Sinha noted, will become even more consequential as AI adoption accelerates and electricity demand surges.
From a geopolitical and institutional lens, Talal M. Al Kaissi, acting group chief global affairs officer at AI and cloud computing firm G42, said the UAE's emergence as a credible AI hub was the result of long-term foresight rather than sudden opportunism. "It's interesting to see how the UAE continuously has punched above its weight," he said, adding: "There's been this open lab environment...with the leadership having the foresight to act very early on."
Watch ET@DAVOS
At the organisational level, David Bach, president and Nestle professor of strategy at IMD Business School, said AI is already transforming how enterprises operate. "So far, you see efficiency drivers in some of the more routinised tasks," he said. Bach described Gen Z as "the most educated generation we've ever had," but also one that is deeply sceptical and demands proof over rhetoric.
Swiggy's food marketplace chief executive Rohit Kapoor said while generative AI has the potential to be transformative, the listed Indian company is cautious about making long-term budget commitments to any single GenAI solution.
"There are hundreds of providers of GenAI support, software or tools. I don't think winners are visible at all right now. What is visible is people who are ahead of others in terms of the impact and the clarity they bring...And hence it's very difficult, and not even prudent now to do any long-term contracts," he said.
Watch ET@DAVOS
Echoing Kapoor's views, consulting firm Deloitte South Asia chief executive Romal Shetty said that less than a quarter of companies have implemented AI at an enterprise scale, with most companies are still in pilot mode. "The big question that enterprises are asking is not to do so much with cost but to do with someone disrupting their business model completely and them being out of circulation," Shetty said.
Executives noted that the growth playbook for global businesses is being reshaped by the convergence of geopolitics, energy and AI, with structural shifts now driven as much by economics as by policy.
Sumant Sinha, founder and chief executive of renewable energy company ReNew, said the global slowdown in climate rhetoric has not altered the trajectory of clean energy adoption. Sinha argued that renewable energy has crossed a critical commercial threshold, creating a sharp geopolitical divide. "There are two kinds of states that are emerging very clearly, " he said. "There are those states that are what you might call the petro states... and there are a lot of other electro states like India and China, Europe, which don't have a lot of fossil fuels."
That divide, Sinha noted, will become even more consequential as AI adoption accelerates and electricity demand surges.
From a geopolitical and institutional lens, Talal M. Al Kaissi, acting group chief global affairs officer at AI and cloud computing firm G42, said the UAE's emergence as a credible AI hub was the result of long-term foresight rather than sudden opportunism. "It's interesting to see how the UAE continuously has punched above its weight," he said, adding: "There's been this open lab environment...with the leadership having the foresight to act very early on."
Watch ET@DAVOS
At the organisational level, David Bach, president and Nestle professor of strategy at IMD Business School, said AI is already transforming how enterprises operate. "So far, you see efficiency drivers in some of the more routinised tasks," he said. Bach described Gen Z as "the most educated generation we've ever had," but also one that is deeply sceptical and demands proof over rhetoric.
( Originally published on Jan 21, 2026 )
