Commvault’s CTO & AI Officer is hoping GenAI technology can make its salesforce more effective.
Generally speaking there are two ways data protection and security companies are using GenAI large language model (LLM) technology. One is to make customer use of their protection and cyber resilience functions easier and more efficient with co-pilot type LLMs. Examples are Rubrik’s Ruby and Commvault’s Airlie. The second way is to make LLM farming of their stored customer data available to customers. Cohesity’s Gaia is the main example of this strategy
Commvault’s newly appointed CTO & AI Officer, Pranay Ahlawat, has a different strategy, and it’s focused on Commvault’s salesforce.
This became clear in a briefing and interview session which we’ve edited for readability.
Blocks & Files: Where did you join Commvault from and what is your role?
Pranay Ahlawat: I joined Commvault from Boston Consulting Group where I was a partner and associate director based out of Washington, DC. I globally led BCG’s product innovation and engineering topic, and spent a lot of time actually thinking about infrastructure software in particular, where AI, data, software architecture is going.
And my background prior to BCG; I spent 10 years in tech in two senior engineering roles. I started my career in this company called AppIQ, that’s been acquired by Hewlett Packard, rose to the ranks at HPE, becoming a principal engineer, then trying to start a company of my own that never really worked out. But then left to go basically become the lead engineer for Desktone. That got acquired by VMware and then ultimately became part of VMware Horizon.
And then, fun fact, I did leave BCG for about a year and a half. I got onto the market, a private equity fund; Carrick Capital Partners. So I’ve been one of those people who’s actually seen software and tech as an investor, as a strategist, and an advisor. And then, of course, as a builder, but life has certainly brought me full circle. And I’m very happy to have joined Commvault.
Blocks & Files: How do you see Commvault AI progressing?
Pranay Ahlawat: The strategic posture that we have taken is we are the protectors of customers’ data. When companies choose Commvault, they trust us with what I would consider is their most strategic and valuable asset.
That said, our focus on AI so far is basically focused on two separate buckets. The first [of] which, an obvious one, is making Commvault an AI-first company. I certainly believe that the anatomy of a software company of the future will be very different. If you take a look at an average software company, they spend about 20 percent of their revenues on R&D, and about 40 percent in sales. How you use AI, responsibly, for software development and for sales is actually going to be very, very strategic for a company.
Bucket number two is implementing AI and combo products, which again, at least in my mental framework is very focused on three buckets.
Bucket number one is transforming our customer experience. [You are aware of Airlie.] I think if you fast forward, the way customers interact with enterprise software is shifting. And we want to be at the bleeding edge of that.
The second is continuing investments across our portfolio of cyber resilience products. If you think about, and break down what our product does is; we help customers detect risks faster. We help them recover rapidly. And we are doing it for the largest installed bases with automation, operations, things like semantic searches. Our job is to basically help customers protect data with risk analysis and threat scan, and then recover rapidly.
And then the last bucket for me is … AI as an application modality is growing very quickly, around 30 to 40 percent. We’re seeing new cloud data warehouse systems. We’re seeing the emergence of new vector databases, like Pinecone, etc. We want to extend our support for data protection to these new workloads. We want to be the best at actually supporting these next generation AI stacks with LLMs and next-generation data sources, etc.
Blocks & Files: How would you see Commvault sales being improved or enhanced by using AI?
Pranay Ahlawat: I think everything, from driving customers in the front end of the funnel, optimizing lead scoring in the middle of the funnel, and then helping accelerate things like the legal T’s and C’s, etc. I think throughout that lifecycle, you’re actually seeing a lot of companies, including a lot of startups, emerge, like the whole investment that Salesforce has made with Einstein AI. To me, I think the entire sales cycle is transforming. And tech companies across the board have to embrace it, or actually become defunct very quickly.
Blocks & Files: You’re saying we’re going to provide an AI concierge to salespeople. So they can do their jobs better; they’ll have a more rounded view of customer interactions, they’ll have a historical view of an entire customer interaction, they’ll be able to produce customer related documentation, some of which is very complicated, much, much faster than before, and it’ll be customizable to each customer faster than before. Whereas I’m thinking sales person probably has to go through doing some manual cut and pasting and that kind of stuff now.
Pranay Ahlawat: Absolutely crazy. And by the way, it’s not just true for sales, it’s also true for software engineering. It’s also true for support. I think AI has the potential to basically transform the entire spectrum of the job. There is a lot of thinking going on at the C-level on what the future anatomy of a software business is going to be? And what can we do? What can we do to actually be at the cutting edge of that transformation?
Blocks & Files: There’s possibly the idea of using Commvault-stored backup data to feed proprietary large, language models, and so forth. That’s something I think that Commvault has not been thinking about.
Pranay Ahlawat: I think it’s certainly not an imperative right now. You know, our posture has been to actually protect that data, and not to use that data. And we’ve been very clear with that posture thus far.
Blocks & Files: What’s the immediate AI focus? Cyber-resilience?
Pranay Ahlawat: I think our investment in AI is getting very, very deliberate. … If you think about how IT architectures have evolved, how data complexity has increased, and how the sophistication of of cyber attacks has actually increased, then it is imperative for players in this space to actually invest heavily in AI. So you can actually deliver those customer results effectively. And that’s the immediate focus for Commvault.
Blocks & Files: There’s a view that AI is currently going through a repeat of the dotcom bubble, and there’s going to be a dreadful coming to terms with what it really means shortly. I don’t think that’s something you share. I think you’re saying that for you, AI is serious, and very useful technology?
Pranay Ahlawat: I have a very pragmatic view of AI. At my previous role at BCG, I gave a lot of thought to the impact that generative AI is actually going to have on software development. We collected a lot of data, and the answer is always the average. If you think about software development, there are some data sources out there that say it’ll be a 30 to 50 percent increase in developer productivity. That isn’t true. The real answer is, it’s somewhere between five and 10 percent, on average, and it varies heavily on the use case.
So it’s imperative for software companies to identify and be very laser focused on the use cases that you’re actually applying AI to. I think that’s point number one.
Point number two is that technology and algorithms are only about 20 to 30 percent of the problem. I think 70 percent of the problem, where companies actually stumble and fall on their face, is process transformation.
Just because you’re actually giving developers a tool doesn’t mean that they will adopt it. We observe something which is called the adoption paradox. 85 percent of people feel that they will be more effective with AI. Yet, when you actually take a look at the average adoption rate in software companies it is generally between 10 and 20 percent.
You have to work very hard as a company to make sure that your developers are educated to learn how to use the technology responsibly. You have to be very, very deliberate about change management, and upskilling people so that they’re actually effective at their job. And then you’re changing your development processes to actually capture the benefits of the generative AI area.
So, are all the Gen AI claims that you’ve actually read true? Absolutely not. But, is generative AI and AI in general creating a step shift in the capabilities? And is it is it positioned to basically transform many functions in the business? It absolutely is.
But it’s imperative on leaders to understand it, sequence the use cases correctly, and then transform the business to make use of AI effectively.
Blocks & Files: Suppose you provide AI tools for the sales force, and they become five to 10 percent more productive. When will that be?
Pranay Ahlawat: The paradox is that, even though people feel there is a lift, there is this notion of what’s called the learning curve hump. Because everybody is busy, they actually don’t invest the time to go over that hump. So there’s almost always a dip in productivity, before you actually see an increase in productivity.
What you have to do is, as in engineering, design your tool provision in a way that you actually give developers the breathing space to actually learn. Same thing for salespeople. What happens is, if you are not proactive, and if you’re not thoughtful about actually transforming on the ground, companies don’t see the best adoption, and they don’t see the designed business results. The challenge really comes on how these tools are rolled out, and how you actually manage the transformation on the ground.
We’re seeing tons of ideas that are mushrooming. We’re seeing a lot of companies actually experimenting. We’re still in the early days. But I think this is the time to actually be proactive and be at the cutting edge. So you can actually realize the benefits as the technology matures.
