Data Analytics Chat

Why Most Organisations Aren’t Ready for AI, Even If They Think They Are

• Ben Parker • Episode 70

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In this episode of Data Analytics Chat, we welcome Sujit Narapareddy, Head of Data and Analytics at AWS Sales. Sujit shares his insights on AI transformation in large enterprises, likening it to the shift from paper maps to GPS. 

We discuss the critical role of human judgment in the age of AI, how organisations can effectively integrate AI into their workflows, and the importance of building a strong data foundation. Sujit shares his personal journey from a technical role to a leadership position, highlighting the importance of business intuition and continuous learning. 

The conversation covers how AI will change organisations by embedding insights into workflows and reducing the friction between knowing and acting. 

00:00 Introduction to AI Transformation
01:42 Guest Introduction: Sujit Narapareddy
02:08 Exploring AI's Impact on Organisations
02:32 Sujit's Career Journey and Leadership Insights
09:21 The Role of AI in Enhancing Human Roles
16:17 Challenges and Strategies for AI Integration
28:28 Preparing for the Future of AI
30:02 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Thank you for listening!

sujit:

I often think about AI transformation is like the shift from paper maps to GPS for a long time inside large enterprises. Data worked like paper maps. We had them everywhere, like dashboards, reports, decks, all beautifully drawn and carefully maintained. But you still need an expert to read them, interpret them, and tell you which turn to take. And by the time you acted on that information, the situation might have already changed. Autopilot flies most of the plane, but no one would argue that the pilot is less important. In fact, the pilot's role becomes more critical because they're no longer focused on constant manual control. They're focused on judgment edge cases and responsibility. In my opinion, organizations that get this right, don't ask what AI will replace. They ask, where do we want human attention to be most valuable? AI is evolving so fast for expertise to come first, progress comes from trying, failing quickly and iterating.

ben parker:

Most organizations say they're preparing for ai, but very few are changing how decisions get made. The gap between AI ambition and AI reality is widening, not shrinking, and the reason has far less to do with technology than most leaders think. Welcome to Data Analytics Chat, the podcast where senior data and AI leaders share the decisions and listen behind delivering real impact at scale. Today I'm joined by Sujit Nara Par, head of Data and Analytics at AWS Sales. Sujit has worked at the intersection of data leadership and large scale organizations, which makes him well placed to cut through the noise around AI and talk about what changes inside companies are making today. So in today's conversation, we're going to explore. Where leaders are underestimating what AI really changes, why many organizations stall despite strong technology and what needs to shift if AI is going to become part of everyday work. Sujit great to have you here.

sujit:

Hello, Ben. Thanks for having me and a very happy new year to you and the business.

ben parker:

Yes. And happy New Year to all the listeners as well. So I'm looking forward to today's conversation. So I guess before we dive in, could you give the listeners a brief introduction to who you are and the work you're focused on

sujit:

sure. I was born and raised in India where I completed my bachelor's in industrial engineering. Before moving to the US I later went on to do my masters in operations research. I've spent most of my career at the intersection of data analytics and business station making ever since childhood. I love numbers, and that curiosity naturally pulled me towards problem solving, analytical thinking, and also growing up in India instilled a strong sense of competitiveness and drive, and that mindset stayed with me throughout my career. Even today, I'm someone who's deeply curious and cares a lot about details, and I like understanding our systems work under the hood and asking why things behave the way they do. Over time, my work has evolved from being deeply technical to focusing more on operational efficiency and business impact. Today I lead data products, analytics for global sales at AWS, and my focus is on making data and insights truly usable at scale. It's not just about building dashboards, but embedding analytics directly into workflows, so sales and marketing. Sales and marketing teams can make better decisions faster. At this stage, my role is less about doing the analysis myself and more about shaping how data flows through the organization and how teams use AI and agents, and how all of that translates into real measurable outcomes.

ben parker:

So looking back then, what leadership decision most shaped how you approach your work today?

sujit:

Interesting question. One of the most important nation that shaped my leadership trajectory was moving from a purely technical role into a nation sciences role at Chase Business Banking. At that time, I was doing well as a big data engineer, but I wasn't happy with the fact that I couldn't clearly see the business impact of the work I was doing. So I went back into learning mode. I picked up data science and finance concepts, worked on some academic projects, and made myself uncomfortable by stepping into a role that was much closer to the Haitian making and the business itself. That role turned out to be quite fast-paced, and it fundamentally changed how I think about my work. The Lean org structure meant that I had direct exposure to C-suite leaders like the CFO Chief Strategy Officer, and I got to see firsthand how leaders running multi-billion dollar businesses think I learned how they approach problem solving, how they use data to make decisions, and most importantly, how they move forward without waiting for perfection. That experience taught me three critical things. How to deal with ambiguity under high pressure, how to balance speed with depth, and how to anchor my thinking in first principles and thus focusing on what truly drives outcomes rather than getting lost in the details. If I had made that move, I think I would've still stayed very strong technically, but I likely would've struggled later to connect data to outcomes. And influence agents or operate effectively at a leadership level. So that shift really shaped how I approach problems and leadership even today.

ben parker:

Brilliant. So did you learn leadership through watching people or were you curious and asking like questions? How did you go about this?'cause obviously stepping up into leadership is a big challenge for a lot of people.

sujit:

For me it was more about a learning curve, and it's a journey on how I've learned about leadership. It's more about practice across the years on multiple things rather than one single thing. I've learned a quite a few things throughout the journey, and there are also some myths that got busted for me. See, one of the biggest surprises that for me was realizing that leadership is far more about clarity than depth. I learned pretty quickly that business intuition and the ability to connect dots across systems is something that I've seen most effective leaders have consistently displayed and acquired. Also, another important learning curve for me was around. genuinely believe that leadership meant having all the answers, and leaders were expected to know what to do in every situation, but that's not really true in hyper growth environments, especially leaders are often not the smartest person in the room. And a big part of the job is listening to the experts first, weighing the options, applying judgment, and then responding. That shift from feeling like you need to know everything to focusing on clarity and asking the right questions is something I've intentionally developed and truly practiced today. It's a big role in how I lead and it's contributed to my success so far. I.

ben parker:

Brilliant. Then what surprised you most about leadership that I guess no one warned you about when you made the transition?

sujit:

Building on top of the business intuition part, that was the biggest surprise for me. It's probably the most underrated thing that we don't talk about business in most forums or in the leadership roles. Having that knack of understanding the business and connecting the various dots across systems and the ability be, and the ability to understand how various things connect to each other. And having that clarity and having that security in yourself as a leader to ask the questions. And when you don't know, it's okay to say, I don't know. And it's okay to say, Hey, I would love to learn more about this. And having that curious mindset is super important and something that really surprised me because I genuinely felt leaders are expected to know everything, which is definitely not the case.

ben parker:

Yeah, no, I definitely think business domains, even now it's becoming more and more important with excelling in your role because obviously you mentioned on the podcast previously previous episodes, that's. You've got a lot of the technologies now do the heavy lifting for people. It's now, how can you apply this into the business world? How can you get the growth, cost savings? How can you improve the efficiencies which are gonna add value to your business?

sujit:

Absolutely. It's all about normalizing the imperfections because nobody's perfect and it's a learning curve. We just have to accept that and embrace it.

ben parker:

Yep. And it's the goalposts always keep moving.

sujit:

Yep.

ben parker:

Brilliant. So let's move on to the data topic. And obviously there's a lot happening, a lot of businesses are shifting with ai. So when you look at the next few years, what do you see AI changing in organizations? First?

sujit:

See, I often think about AI transformation is like the shift from paper maps to GPS for a long time inside large enterprises. Data worked like paper maps. We had them everywhere, like dashboards, reports, decks, all beautifully drawn and carefully maintained. But you still need an expert to read them, interpret them, and tell you which turn to take. And by the time you acted on that information, the situation might have already changed. AI is really the GPS movement over the next few years. The first thing AI will change is in the strategy or art charts. It's the experience of using data. See, instead of stopping your work to go back to look at the data, insights will show up while you're driving. It'll be embedded directly into your workflows, tools, and decisions. Just like GPS, it doesn't eliminate maps, it doesn't remove human judgment, but it'll dramatically reduce the friction between knowing and acting. The interesting part here is what does the what does it does to the organizations? You no longer need to be a data expert to make sense of massive amounts of data. Product managers, operators, frontline leaders, can all ask questions in plain, simple English. Get usable answers instantly. That shifts the role of the data organization. Instead of being the team that hands out directions, it becomes the team responsible for making sure the navigation system itself is trustworthy by putting the right data, right guardrails in place. And here's the deeper change that most people underestimate when everyone has GPS access to data is no longer the constraint. Judgment on top of the data becomes the constraint. So when I look ahead, I think AI will change organizations first by collapsing the distance between insight and action, not just by replacing people.

ben parker:

Okay. Fascinating. So do you feel there are any changes that leaders are still underestimating?

sujit:

It's hard to generalize but at a macro. But what, but at a macro level, I think there is both underestimation and overestimation happening at the same time. We only need to work towards finding the right balance in the near future. To extend the G Ps analogy, many leaders think AI as just getting a faster route or better traffic alerts that is helpful, efficient, and nice to have. What they're underestimating is that once everyone has access to AI, leadership is no longer about knowing the answer. It's about understanding what brings the answer, the context behind it. See, in the past, senior leaders had an advantage by having the best information. They could see the patterns that other others couldn't, and they had answers to the questions faster than the rest of the organizations. AI will quietly erode that a vantage When anyone in the organization can ask the questions like, what's driving this? What's hap? What happens if you change X and all of this is available at your tip of your fingertips? Then leadership is less about information access and it's more about direction, judgment and trade-offs. So if people can't tell the difference between the insights and the hallucination here, then they will stop using the system.

ben parker:

Okay. Brilliant. And then, so there, obviously there's a lot of talk around AI complementing human roles in practical terms. So what does that look like?

sujit:

So I think AI will complement humans, but it's if I have to give an example, it'll complement the same the way autopilot technology compliments a pilot. The technology didn't replace pilots. It changed the way they spend their attention on, as we all know, on a modern flight. Autopilot flies most of the plane, but no one would argue that the pilot is less important. In fact, the pilot's role becomes more critical because they're no longer focused on constant manual control. They're focused on judgment edge cases and responsibility. That's what AI complementing human roles will look like. Inside enterprise organizations, AI can take over continuous, repetitive cogni cognitive tasks. Pulling the data, summarizing patterns, testing scenarios, or even answering the basic questions like what happened and what if scenarios. And that frees humans to focus on what AI is bad at. Like framing the right questions, understanding the context, weighing, tradeoffs, and deciding when not to act in a data organization. Analysts will spend less time building analysis. More time challenging them in product teams. Managers will spend less time chasing metrics and more time debating priorities. In leadership, executives will spend less time asking for updates and more time deciding direction. The key practical shift is this becomes the first pass, not the final say, just like autopilot. It works extremely well in normal conditions. But when something unexpected happens, like a pandemic, a policy change, or a cultural nuance, that's when human judgment takes control. And one more important thing here, complimenting doesn't mean splitting work 50 50. It means AI handles the known parts and humans handle the moments where map no longer applies. In my opinion, organizations that get this right, don't ask what AI will replace. They ask, where do we want human attention to be most valuable?

ben parker:

Yeah, you make some interesting points. It's, similar to Excel, their stories were, they're gonna take all the accountancy jobs. Accountants are still here. Also LinkedIn, there's always, 20 years ago, they're gonna take all the recruitment jobs. I'm still here. So it is, like I said, obviously parts of it will be replaced, but you still need the human element, don't you? It is, it's just, I think it's just a lot noise on the market in my opinion, whether people are trying to sell their products or scare people. It's just humans are still gonna be here like it is. We're not getting replaced in my opinion. It's just you're going to get some of your roles gonna slightly adapt. So then what's the biggest challenges companies facing right now as they try to integrate AI into everyday work?

sujit:

I love giving analogy, so let me give one more on this.

ben parker:

Let's go for it.

sujit:

so implementing AI reminds me of setting up a professional kitchen, right? So you can't create anyone who's worked in the food industry knows that you can't create great dishes or an excellent culinary experience unless you know your pantry very well, and it's organized and you understand how ingredients work together. That's exactly what I'm seeing with AI adoption today, companies are rushing to deploy AI without building to essential foundations. First, they're working with messy, inconsistent data, like just trying to cook when you don't even know what's in your ingredients. At AWS, when we started our AI journey, we invested heavily in standardizing data definitions. And ensuring clean, consistent information across the organization, but clean data alone isn't enough. You also need to understand how pieces of business information relate to each other. We call this as a semantic layer. It helps a understand business context. For example, how marketing influences sales pipelines, or how customer engagement drives revenue. And without this layer. AI might give technically correct answers, but contextually it could be meaningless. So by investing in these foundations, we are basically enabling AI to deliver insights that leaders can trust and act on. Yes, this totally requires an upfront investment, but it's a difference between AI that adds value versus the AI that creates noise. So in my opinion, the companies that get this right will have a real advantage.

ben parker:

Yeah, no, I agree. And then so what separates organizations that have got the ability to move quickly from those that get stuck?

sujit:

See, organizations that move fast will all tell very similar stories. They don't start by going in all in on ai. They start with one real workflow owned by a real leader where nation get made or real nations get made. They focus on operationalizing AI inside an actual business workflow. The invest heavy on foundational data and infrastructure. It's not just about optimized data. It's also about building a data infrastructure that can be trusted, connected, and available at all times, and that one decision alone removes months and months of friction later. Another important thing is also here, another important thing here is how they move in small loops. They ship something that's good enough, watch how people use it and improve it in weeks, not quarters. improves because it's in use, not because it's in theory. Organizations that move faster, put light guard rails in place instead of heavy approvals. The teams can move faster without fear, and most importantly, leaders use AI themselves. When employees see AI shaping realizations at the top, adoptions become cultural. On the flip side, organizations that struggle do the opposite. They debate strategy endlessly. Chase for perfect data that never exists. Avoid experimentation and wait for confidence instead of building it through use. The difference here isn't ambition or spend. It's operation clarity and a willingness to learn in motion.

ben parker:

And I'm guessing now as a leader, cause there's, must be so much want from especially like AI agents, from business divisions, I guess now. A big challenge is gonna be choosing the correct use case to implement.'cause as you mentioned, obviously you can't do multiple projects at once or your business is just gonna get unstuck. So I guess a big challenge now for leaders is choosing what's gonna have the biggest impact.

sujit:

Absolutely, yes. It's about understanding where there is value and picking the right use case, not just because it's a shiny object. We wanna pick it up and then start using it. Meaninglessly, it's about putting it to use where it really matters, and also understand that it's not just about trying to. Make the horses run faster. In many cases, you may not need the whole workflow itself. It could be about finding a combustion engine instead of trying to find faster horses. So there's a, there should be a lot of value on time spent in understanding where exactly this fits

ben parker:

okay. Then as AI takes on more tasks, what new skills or mindsets will employees need to stay relevant and valuable with?

sujit:

See the, there's a long list, but for me, the most important skill is in technical mastery, but it's mindset First, it's an eagerness to learn and try what's next. The people who stay relevant won't wait for perfect clarity or formal training. They will experiment early and learn my doing. Second is about being comfortable at being bad at something. While learning. AI is evolving so fast for expertise to come first, progress comes from trying, failing quickly and iterating. Most importantly, instead of worrying about what might replace us, it's far more productive to ask. What does this free up to do better? Where can I add judgment, creativity, and context? That's where creativity becomes a real differentiator. It's not just about using AI to be faster, but to think differently and create a new value by experimenting and understanding where we could create new business workflows that we couldn't think in the past.

ben parker:

Brilliant. Then how should leaders rethink the way teams are structured when humans and AI systems start working side by side?

sujit:

As AI and humans work together, team structures will shift away from rigid roles and more towards orchestration. What works well are smaller and autonomous teams. Just like at Amazon, we do our two piecer teams that will own a customer problem end to end and irate quickly with AI embedded in the workflow. Also, another interesting shift is how engineering roles are evolving. The line between product and engineering is starting to blur and it's leading to the rise of a new role called product engineers. This role basically stays close to the customer problem and decides how best to solve it, whether through code configuration or AI orchestration in general. Going a little deeper on the engineering side, engineering becomes less about writing code and more about designing systems. It's going to be about deciding which tools to use, how agents interact, where guardrails belong, and where human judgment matters that I think enables speed. Without Kio, we are gonna see fewer handoffs, tighter feedback loops, and faster translation from intent to execution, not just because teams are bigger, but because they're sharper and better aligned.

ben parker:

Okay. It's interesting you, as you mentioned around pro project sorry, product engineering. So is there any other early examples of team structures that you've seen work well?

sujit:

There's definitely a lot of experimentation happening and different models work better in different contexts. Continuing on the product engineer role in, at our organization, we've introduced this role last year and the idea was to bring product thinking and engineering execution close together, especially as AI became part of everyday work. What we are seeing so far has been truly encouraging. Particularly around rapid prototyping and iation teams are able to go from an idea to something tangible much faster. This and the same people are able to shape the problem and work directly with the tools. That said, it's still early days and we are very much in a learning phase and super excited about it.

ben parker:

Yeah, and I think obviously as these new team structures are. Blended. The challenge is gonna be actually hiring people for these roles.'cause even taking sort of the, I get the product role, you mentioned this, obviously now you've got product data scientists getting the right combination of technical skills, product skills, and also business domain expertise is a massive hurdle for cha businesses that wanna progress quickly. So I guess that's gonna impact. Other sort of new business models or new team structures as like the AI that's within the co within companies.

sujit:

Absolutely, yes. It's going to see, it's about a paradigm shift in how these roles are shaping together. Like you said, it's an intersection between a product and a science and an engineering role. That's giving birth to these new roles, either the product engineer, which is at an intersection of an engineer and a product manager or a product data scientist between a science roles and a product manager, or even a super engineer who was at the intersection of a data software and a business intelligence engineers. So we are not going to find ready-made skillful professionals with all acquired skills in the industry, but we are gonna work towards it. And that's where I think as a leader, love to have the patience to make sure the culture is set for that experimentation. People will fail more often than they've seen in the past while experimenting and while acquiring new skills. And it's totally fine to make sure as lo as long as we are going in the right direction, as long as there is learning. Faster than the pace of the problems that we are facing. It's absolutely fine to basically keep experimenting, learning on the go and see how it goes.

ben parker:

Yeah. And I think in the future sort of learning and development like teams, that's gonna be where businesses succeed. If you're investing in your team to learn these new skills, they're gonna get up to scratch a lot quicker than just learning on job. So I think it's gonna be interesting how businesses do this.'cause even now, like obviously I work in recruitment, we're seeing. Businesses struggle to hire people.'cause a lot of them are just looking for all the skill sets when really you're not gonna get that.'cause the industry is so diverse now, so many different roles, so many different positions that where data roles previously were more technical, they now have more business stakeholder, product focus. So there's so much out there now and it, and I guess to make it. Even more challenging. Everyone is trying to become more data driven. So the competition, everyone wants these skill sets, so it is challenging for businesses to keep up.

sujit:

So true the, it's very interesting to see how the business teams. Trying to become more and more technical, and AI is totally helping them to get there. And how the technical teams, like engineers and scientists want to become more and more business savvy. And AI is helping that too. So it's a very interesting phase. We are gonna see everyone trying to pick up and acquire something which they were not exposed to or something they, something that was not the skill in the past. And that's why I truly think it's going to make everyone a lot more productive and skillful in the next few years with the availability of all the tools in front of us.

ben parker:

Yep. Definitely. Moving to the next question. When businesses ask how do we prepare for the future of ai, what's the smartest first step they can take right now, in your opinion?

sujit:

I usually start by saying, embrace AI in a way that genuinely works your advantage. Be clear about what, it creates real value, not just where it's exciting, and sometime that starts with data. A strong data foundation matters, especially as you introduce agents. Agents will need clear definitions, clear inputs and shared context, the judgment, what a human being could apply. When there is ambiguity and when there is multiple definitions agents cannot really apply that judgment. So it's important that we have very clear definitions and we call it as metrics store at Amazon. And without that, agents will. Basically give you inconsistent outputs and there could be hallucinations and that leads to loss of trust. And second one, it's also, again, a mindset shift here. AI isn't about doing the same work faster. That's the faster us faster horse strap I was talking about. The real opportunity is rethinking workflows entirely, and that's where the step change impact comes from. See, we don't need to. out everything from the get go. But if we start with clear values and understand what exactly we are trying to do, and with some solid data foundations and a willingness to rethink workflows, we are setting ourself for success.

ben parker:

Ji, I really appreciate your Thank you for conversation.

sujit:

It was awesome being here and thoroughly enjoyed the conversation too. Thanks for having me again.

ben parker:

No problem. And I wish you all the best for 2026 and also for thanks for listening, everyone, and I wish you all, you hit your goals for 2026 and I'll see you in the next episode of Data Analytics Chat. Thank you.