KIIT School of Management (KSOM) hosted its 7th National Business Analytics Conclave on October 10, 2026, centered on the theme “The Agentic Enterprise: From Insights to Autonomous Action.” The conclave explored the implications of AI moving beyond insight generation to autonomous decision-making and action, with a focus on its transformative impact on businesses, the future of work, and management education.

The event saw the participation of students, faculty members, industry leaders and distinguished guests, beginning with a welcome note from the student anchors and the ceremonial lighting of the lamp. Convener Prof. Piyusa Das set the context with three simple ideas: understand what AI really is, accept that humans cannot always predict the impact of new technology, and keep human judgment at the centre of every decision.

Prof. Kumar Mohanty, Director, KSOM, welcomed the gathering and assured students that AI is not here to take their jobs, since humans still build and control these agents. He also highlighted KIIT’s growing industry partnerships and its focus on making students industry-ready. Prof. Saranjit Singh, Vice Chancellor, KIIT Deemed to be University, shared his vision of making KIIT an AI-native university within about three years, with a greater voice for students, while stressing that humans must always remain in the loop.

Delivering the keynote address, Mr. Biswajit Panda, Senior Vice President and Head of India GCCs, NielsenIQ, explained that the agentic enterprise is not just a technology change but a business change, and therefore matters to students of every specialization. Using simple examples from hiring, onboarding, finance and marketing, he showed how AI agents can save time and effort while people continue to make the key decisions. He urged students to build domain knowledge, creativity, communication, ethics and a habit of continuous learning.

The conclave then moved into two panel discussions on humans, agents and the future of business. Mr. Dhrubabrata Ghosh Dastidar Managing, Director – Data Analytics and Digital Transformation, Protiviti, moderated Panel 1, which featured Mr. Soumendra Das CEO, AI1st Lab, Dr Manoranjan Puthal (Managing Director, OKCL, and Mr .Satya Das, Director, Global Product Management, Unisys. The panel advised organizations to start with low-risk, high-value tasks. They argued that human intuition and moral accountability remain indispensable for guiding machine intelligence toward sustainable enterprise value.

Panel 2 was moderated by Mr. Manish K. Pandey Sr. Director, Cyber Security, Infosys, featuring Mr. Pritam S. Purkayastha, Senior Advisor-Transformation Consulting, Grant Thornton and Mr. Biswajit Acharya, Associate Director – Enterprise Solutions, PepsiCo. The panel discussed on how AI is already helping in supply chains, fraud detection and forecasting, and agreed that critical decisions must stay with people.

The panel discussions were followed by 11 parallel workshops which allowed students to interact directly with industry experts. The conclave provided KSOM students with a meaningful opportunity to connect classroom learning with industry expectations. It concluded by underscoring that the true value of analytics lies not just in the capabilities of intelligent machines, but in the human judgement and wisdom that guide their application.

The 7th National Business Analytics Conclave reinforced KSOM’s commitment to industry-academia collaboration and to nurturing future-ready professionals for the evolving digital era.