Hitachi Takes Cautious Approach to Enterprise AI Strategy

Hitachi's Chief Information Officer (CIO) for its Americas division, Bala Krishnapillai, says the Japanese conglomerate doesn't have a one-size-fits-all approach to enterprise AI strategy.

The company employs nearly 290,000 people globally and has not yet deployed a single, enterprise-wide AI tool for all workers. However, Hitachi does use various AI tools that have been widely adopted by its workforce.

Krishnapillai's internal AI adoption strategy focuses on three areas: everyday productivity tools like Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini, job-specific tools such as AI-enabled content creation used by creative professionals or competitive analysis for the sales team, and developers' use of AI coding assistants, where Hitachi works closely with Anthropic.

Krishnapillai emphasizes that there is no single solution for enterprise AI strategy and encourages AI adoption across the company while implementing controls to track usage and spending. He also highlights data complexity as a significant challenge due to Hitachi's sprawling business operations across multiple markets and customer relationship management (CRM) software systems.

Hitachi has connected its data using enterprise software vendor Appian, which has led to a 40% efficiency gain for the sales and marketing team and a 20% reduction in operating costs. However, Krishnapillai notes that embracing autonomous AI agents poses challenges, including establishing security protocols and data protection measures.