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India AI Impact Summit 2026: Leadership Roundtable on Safe & Trusted AI

9 February, 2026, 7 PM-8 PM

Sopra Steria India hosted the Official Pre-Summit leadership roundtable of the AI Impact Summit 2026, bringing together over 100 senior leaders and industry experts to examine the implications of industrialised and responsible AI for enterprises.

As AI becomes deeply embedded across industries, the discussion focused on a critical challenge: scaling innovation while ensuring trust, governance, compliance, and accountability. The roundtable reinforced a shared belief that Responsible AI is a leadership responsibility first, requiring clear intent, strong governance frameworks, and a human-centric approach.

Key Speakers

	Dr. Pawan Goyal Industry Leader – AI & Data, Naukri Dr. Pawan Goyal brings deep expertise in leveraging AI and data at scale within large digital platforms. His experience spans building responsible, data-driven systems that balance innovation with user trust, fairness, and transparency, making his perspective especially relevant to India’s evolving AI ecosystem.
Nicolas Rebierre  President, European Trustworthy AI Association Nicolas Rebierre represents European thought leadership on Trustworthy AI frameworks, governance models, and regulatory alignment. He brings a global perspective on how organisations can operationalise ethical AI principles while complying with emerging international standards
	Mohammed Sijelmassi Chief Technology Officer, Sopra Steria Mohammed Sijelmassi is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Sopra Steria Group and a member of the Executive Committee. He drives the Group’s technology vision and strategic innovation agenda, focusing on the practical adoption of AI, cloud, and digital transformation across global industries. Mohammed regularly contributes to thought leadership on AI, generative technologies, and real-world implementation approaches that balance innovation with operational and ethical considerations.
Ganesh Sahai CTO Nagarro Ganesh Sahai is an IIT and IIM alumnus with over 25 years of industry experience, having worked with organizations such as Adobe and Oracle. He is currently the Global CTO at Nagarro. A multiple-time entrepreneur, author of Improve On, and a recognized technology leader, he holds over 10 patents and is a frequent speaker at forums including TEDx, NASSCOM, and IEEE.
Moderator
Shalini Misra Global Digital Offering, Leader Sopra Steria Shalini Misra leads Sopra Steria’s global digital offerings and has extensive experience driving large-scale digital and AI transformation programs. As a moderator, she will guide the discussion towards practical insights, enterprise realities, and future-ready AI strategies.

Summit Highlights

• Defining Trust in AI : Speakers unpacked the concept of trust in AI systems from multiple lenses—technical robustness, governance frameworks, user impact, and ethical accountability.
  
• Organisational Capabilities for Responsible AI : Discussions emphasised that trustworthiness isn’t an add-on but a core organisational capability, mandating strong governance, cross-functional collaboration, and engineering maturity.
  
• Explainability & Traceability in Practice : The panel addressed the real-world challenge of embedding explainability and traceability into AI workflows, especially in agile and high-stakes environments.
  
• Trust-by-Design Strategies : Practitioners shared actionable strategies to bake trust into systems early, including disciplined rollout and rollback mechanisms, and readiness checks before deployment.
  
• Learning from Trust Failures : Common pitfalls—such as rushing AI deployments without adequate risk frameworks or delaying innovation due to lack of mastery—were surfaced, along with mechanisms like sandboxes to accelerate safe adoption.
  
• Autonomous and Long-Lived AI Systems : The closing conversation explored architectural foundations for long-running autonomous AI, underscoring the ongoing, irreplaceable role of human judgement.

A glimpse into the conversations, exchanges, and moments that shaped the India AI Impact Summit 2026

Looking Ahead

This roundtable reinforced Sopra Steria’s commitment to responsible, human-centric AI—driving AI adoption that is not only innovative but also trustworthy and sustainable.

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