AI’s real business payoff: abundance
In an interview with ComputerWeekly, Freshworks CIO Ashwin Ballal explains why AI gives agile enterprises the freedom to chase more ideas than their resources once allowed
Most conversations about AI in the enterprise circle the same question: How do we use AI to free up time and resources? Ashwin Ballal, Freshworks' CIO, thinks that framing misses the point.
Speaking to Computer Weekly at Refresh 2026 in New York, Ballal, who came to IT leadership after roles in marketing, engineering, product, and operations, argues that AI changes the basic economics of what an organization can take on. He's watched the pattern before, through the shifts from datacenter to cloud, cloud to mobile, and mobile to SaaS.
"We're moving into what we call abundance,” he says. “Previously, an organization was constrained by its resources. You could only focus on a few ideas. Now, if we don't constrain the resources, we can consider copious ideas."
That shift rewrites the IT org chart. He envisions technologists who work alongside every part of the business rather than inside infrastructure, apps, or data silos. "Everyone's going to be even," he says. "All of us are going to work with our business partners to transform the enterprise.”
He's careful not to oversell the moment. Agents are good at the routine, he notes, but they can't yet transform an end-to-end process on their own. The edge belongs to organizations nimble enough to treat the time AI frees up as an opportunity to chase new ideas, and to the people willing to grow into the bigger roles that follow.
That last part, Ballal suggests, is less about technology than disposition. "You've got to be curious, and you've got to be vulnerable," he says.
In an era of abundance, it may be the most valuable pairing of all.
Read the full interview with Ashwin Ballal at ComputerWeekly.com.
