THE TECHNOLOGY INTERVIEW
but that level of comfort is still not there in the enterprise yet. It’ s going to take a little bit more time before companies are just going to let the agents run their mission-critical operations.
“ I draw a parallel with the self-driving capabilities in some of the electric vehicles. They still give that,‘ Hey, we need your hands on the steering wheel’. While it can do things, there’ s always that caution. So the human judgement evaluation analysis, governance control, all of that is still there.”
While keeping a human in the loop ensures operational safety, it also changes the financial equation, forcing leaders to look at specific efficiency metrics to prove the tangible ROI of their AI spend.
“ The real costs involved with AI infrastructure are not all clear yet,” Manu asserts.
“ If I were to draw some parallels to the cloud computing era, it was heavily discounted, now the real costs are showing up and the CFOs are asking questions to the technology leaders as to why the cost is up. I think we may get to that stage, but right now we’ re in the mode where everyone’ s looking at obvious productivity benefits.
“ For example, a healthcare company would ask‘ What is the cost per claim?’ or a service management provider would ask‘ Can I reduce the ticket cost per case?’.”
Other metrics like reduction in time to market, time to resolution or time to decision are also proof of ROI for AI investments.
“ Customers are looking at solving business problems and getting to an outcome,” Manu says.“ Most leaders are spending millions on managing the workflow and want to make it more efficient at a lower spend.”
AI’ s real-world impact When discussing the tangible ROI of modern enterprise tech investments, Manu points to automation and advanced AI as the primary catalysts for institutional change.
Rather than speaking in hypotheticals, he grounds the conversation in two of
28 July 2026