



AI in Indian companies: Your next boss might be a chief AI officer.
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. MUMBAI : Across Indian organizations, artificial intelligence (AI) has moved from pilot projects to the corner office.
Over the past 12 months, companies have announced at least 50 senior AI-focused leadership hires—most notably chief AI officers (CAIOs)—across fintech, banking, manufacturing, logistics, media and enterprise technology, according to executive search firm Longhouse. The pace has accelerated sharply over the past six months, with more than a third of these appointments announced between November 2025 and February 2026, data from Longhouse showed.
AI is increasingly becoming an operating layer across both tech startups and legacy firms, rather than a side initiative housed within engineering teams. “Across India, companies are increasingly appointing CAIOs as AI moves from pilot projects to full-scale enterprise adoption," said Anshuman Das, chief executive and co-founder of Longhouse.
“AI is now a board-level priority, not just a technology initiative." On 17 July 2024, Mint reported that several new-age firms, including food-delivery platform Zomato and fitness app Healthifyme, chose not to replace departing chief technology officers (CTOs). Others, such as food-delivery company Swiggy, e-two-wheeler maker Ola Electric Mobility, ticket-booking platform BookMyShow, and business-to-business e-commerce firm Udaan, redistributed technology mandates internally or left the role vacant, according to Longhouse’s earlier research.
These moves are early signals of how the top deck is shifting in the AI era. Among the 50-plus appointments tracked, at least 15 carried an explicit CAIO or clearly AI-first mandate, while many others embedded AI into expanded CTO, chief digital and
. Read on livemint.com