Stay Cognizant

AI in marketing is transforming enterprise operations, but the real challenge is not the technology itself — it's how organizations build the culture, capability, and governance needed to scale AI across a global team. In this episode of Stay Cognizant, host Pamela Axtell (Senior Director, Global Brand Strategy and Marketing at Cognizant) is joined by Josh Walters (Global Marketing Strategy, Operations & Transformation Lead, Cognizant) to break down how AI is moving from individual productivity tool to full agentic transformation inside a 340-person marketing function. If you want to understand how a global enterprise marketing team is actually building AI into workflows — not bolting it on — this episode gives you a grounded, real-world view.Together, Pamela and Josh explore how Cognizant's marketing team went from giving everyone access to an LLM to building nearly 20 purpose-specific agents — including an Audience Builder that democratizes proprietary CRM data, a closed-loop research assistant trained exclusively on Cognizant's own studies, and a thought-leadership writing coach that scaled one editor's capacity from 6 consultations a week to 50 submissions a day. They also dig into what it really takes to lead this kind of transformation, from change management and skills evolution to measuring value that doesn't show up on any productivity dashboard.Don't risk falling behind as AI moves from experimentation to enterprise standard — learn how Cognizant's marketing team is already reimagining operations, unlocking new capability, and driving marketing-influenced pipeline at scale.🔔 Love the podcast? Don't forget to subscribe and rate us!

AI in healthcare is transforming enterprise operations, but the real challenge is not the technology itself—it’s how organizations build the context, trust, and governance needed to scale AI safely and effectively. In this episode of Stay Cognizant, host Pamela Axtell (Senior Director, Global Brand Strategy and Marketing at Cognizant) is joined by Lisa Hersheiser (Client Relationship Manager, Cognizant Healthcare) and Allen Fredrickson (Founder and Executive Chairman, Signature Performance) to break down how AI is moving from experimentation to enterprise-scale impact in healthcare. If you want to understand how AI is actually being applied in real healthcare systems to improve cost, speed, and patient outcomes, this episode gives you a grounded, real-world view.Together, Pamela, Lisa, and Allen explore how healthcare inefficiencies have driven administrative costs from ~10% to nearly 40% of total spend—and how AI-powered automation is reversing that trend by reducing claims processing time from weeks to days, increasing auto-adjudication rates above 90%, and improving accuracy beyond 99%. They also dig into what it really takes to scale AI responsibly in healthcare, from governance and data readiness to workflow design and cultural adoption across organizations.Don’t risk falling behind as healthcare AI moves from experimentation to enterprise standard—learn how leading organizations are already transforming operations, reducing costs, and improving patient outcomes at scale.🔔 Love the podcast? Don’t forget to subscribe and rate us!

AI is transforming enterprises, but when it moves from dashboards into factories, grids, and warehouses, the stakes—and the risks—become very real. In this episode of Stay Cognizant, host Pamela Axtell (Senior Director, Global Brand Strategy and Marketing at Cognizant) sits down with Vijay Narayan (EVP and Business Unit Head, MLEU, Cognizant) to explore how context, human judgment, and system design are essential to scaling AI safely in the physical world.Vijay breaks down why “AI with brakes, not AI limitless” is critical when AI interacts with physical assets, from storm-impacted utilities to complex manufacturing lines. He shares how Cognizant engineers context-rich AI systems, orchestrating multi-agent frameworks and digital twins that allow humans and machines to share responsibility while mitigating risk. From shadow mode testing to cognitive data fabrics, Vijay explains the processes that turn AI pilots into enterprise-scale outcomes.Together, they discuss how leading organizations amplify their unique strengths, level off inefficiencies, and cultivate a culture of continuous learning to thrive in an AI-powered future. The conversation provides a grounded, human-centered perspective on what it takes to deploy AI with trust, predictability, and real-world value.🔔 Love the podcast? Don’t forget to subscribe and rate us!

AI is already reshaping enterprise work, but the real challenge isn’t the technology. It’s how organizations help people navigate fear, build relevance, and redesign work in a world where humans and AI agents operate side by side. In this episode of Stay Cognizant, host Pamela Axtell (Senior Director, Global Brand Strategy and Marketing at Cognizant) is joined by Ganesh Ayyar (President, Intuitive Operations and Automation and Industry Solutions Group at Cognizant) to explore what enterprise transformation actually looks like in the AI era.Ganesh breaks down why job cuts are a flawed response to AI disruption and why skilling must be treated as core enterprise infrastructure. He shares how leading organizations are rethinking operating models, governance, and accountability as AI moves from experimentation to scale and why context, not raw intelligence, is what unlocks real enterprise value. From managing human and digital labor together to designing systems where AI augments judgment rather than replaces it, the conversation focuses on what works in practice.Together, they examine how enterprise leaders can move from fear to agency, build adaptable career paths, and create cultures where ambiguity is expected, and navigated, as AI continues to accelerate. The result is a grounded, human-centered view of how enterprises can compete, grow, and stay relevant in an unsettled world.🔔 Love the podcast? Don’t forget to subscribe and rate us!

Agentic AI is redefining how enterprises create value, collaborate, and compete. In this episode of Stay Cognizant, host Pamela Axtell (Senior Director, Global Brand Strategy and Marketing at Cognizant) is joined by Naveen Sharma (Naveen Sharma, SVP and Global Practice Head, Data and AI at Cognizant) and David Schubmehl (Research Vice President for AI and Automation at IDC) to explore the rise of the agentic economy, a new era where autonomous, interconnected AI agents are transforming how work gets done.Naveen and David unpack what makes this moment different from past waves of automation, how agentic systems are becoming the new “operating system” for business, and what early adopters are learning as they reimagine workflows and labor models. They share real-world examples from multi-week processes reduced to 30 minutes to enterprises scaling AI-driven decision-making across entire ecosystems and discuss how leaders can prepare their organizations for this next phase of digital transformation.Together, they examine the opportunities, challenges, and human implications of an economy powered by agents that can sense, decide, and act, setting the stage for a new era of enterprise intelligence.🔔 Love the podcast? Don’t forget to subscribe and rate us!

AI is shifting from better prompts to smarter foundations and that’s where context engineering comes in. In this episode of Stay Cognizant, host Pamela Axtell is joined by Shanker Udyaver (Vice President and Global Head of Technology Consulting at Cognizant) to explore why context engineering is emerging as the real differentiator in enterprise AI adoption.Shanker explains how context engineering goes beyond prompt engineering to help enterprises embed their unique organizational knowledge into AI systems. He shares why this shift is critical for reducing hallucinations, improving reliability, and extracting real business value from AI investments. They also discuss Cognizant’s approach to scaling context with context fabric, the role of multi-agent AI systems, and the technical and ethical challenges enterprises must overcome to adopt AI responsibly.The conversation makes one thing clear: the enterprises that master context engineering will be the ones that win with AI.🔔 Love the podcast? Don’t forget to subscribe and rate us!

Open-source AI is redefining how enterprises innovate, scale, and collaborate. In this episode of Stay Cognizant, host, Pamela Axtell, is joined by Babak Hodjat (Chief AI Officer at Cognizant) and Dan Fink (AVP, Software Architect at Cognizant AI Labs) to explore the launch of NeuroSAN, Cognizant’s open-source, multi-agent AI accelerator.Babak and Dan unpack how NeuroSAN enables organizations to build interoperable, scalable AI systems that connect hundreds of agents, balance privacy and security, and empower non-coders to experiment in natural language. They reveal how an internal project that once required a year of human labor was completed in a single day using NeuroSAN—and why open ecosystems like this could become the “Linux” of enterprise AI.Together, they discuss the business case for open-source adoption, the engineering trade-offs of multi-agent systems, and what it will take to build trust and responsible AI practices as companies move from pilots to full-scale deployment.🔔 Love the podcast? Don’t forget to subscribe and rate us!