The Agent Effect

Today’s AI agents operate across disparate systems, but what happens when billions of agents can freely discover, trust, communicate and transact with one another, without needing to know in advance that the others exist?In this episode, MIT professor and NANDA founder Ramesh Raskar explores the rise of the open agentic web, a decentralized ecosystem he compares to the emergence of the World Wide Web in the 1990s. He unpacks why today’s internet infrastructure isn’t enough for a world of autonomous agents and what new layers of identity, authentication, reputation, security and commerce will be needed to make that future possible.From agents that can communicate bidirectionally to marketplaces where intelligence itself can be exchanged, discover how an open agentic web could connect disparate agentic systems and create an entirely new digital economy.

Most enterprise intranets have many disparate, isolated chatbots representing different departments which can cause confusion for employees on where to get their answers and can result in overloaded support tickets. Cognizant took a different path, transforming its OneCognizant platform into a multi-agent system to help streamline inquiries and deliver more accurate responses faster. In this episode, we unpack how agentification turned a traditional intranet into a unified, conversational decision layer—serving 350,000 employees, reducing support tickets by 50%, and delivering 10M+ agent interactions with 92% positive feedback. Learn how orchestration, governance, and distributed intelligence come together to move from AI agent pilots to real enterprise impact.
Guests: 

Dan Fink, Associate Vice President-Platform Engineering 
Venkatesh Balaji, Associate Vice President - AVP Enterprise Architecture

Enterprises are racing to deploy AI agents and discovering that “it works in a pilot” isn’t the same as “it’s safe in production.” In this episode, Benjamin Larsen unpacks the World Economic Forum’s AI Agents in Action report, exploring how organizations can classify agentic systems, assess risk, measure performance, and design governance frameworks that enable — rather than slow — innovation in the decade of AI agents.

Patricio Salvatore La Rosa shares how Bayer is building the foundational components of agentic AI in a complex, biologically driven production environment. He explains the prerequisites for adoption –data quality, system connectivity, governance, and cultural trust – and how these elements enable agents to support everything from operational scheduling to future autonomous field interventions.

Cognizant set a Guinness World Record by hosting the world’s largest GenAI hackathon with over 53,000 participants across 40 countries. In this episode, Arumugam Kamaradassan and Deepak Singh share how Cognizant vibe coded the submissions process including the entry portal and used a multi-agent system for judging, evaluating over 30,000 submissions in under 24 hours.

Leo S. Mackay, Jr. shares what it takes to scale agentic AI at the enterprise level — and why most organizations are starting in the wrong place. Drawing on leadership roles in national defense, ethics, and the boardroom, he unpacks how trust, domain expertise, and the right strategic partners create the conditions for real AI transformation.

Kim Krogh Andersen joins Paul Jarratt to share how enterprises can move beyond AI hype and build the foundational systems and leadership mindset to scale agents safely and strategically.

Krishna Gade, Founder and CEO of Fiddler, explores how businesses can build trust in agentic AI – from investing in responsible practices to implementing observability tools that ensure agents behave reliably at scale.

Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S unpacks how AI agents are changing the enterprise equation – from expanding capacity through agentic capital to building entirely new operating models. He shares how Cognizant is applying agents internally, why context is critical to scaling them safely, and what leaders need to do now to stay ahead in this new era of intelligent collaboration.

Lisa Bechtold, Zurich Insurance’s Global Head of AI Governance, and Amir Banifatemi, Cognizant’s Chief Responsible AI Officer, share what it takes to scale agentic AI safely and why strong governance is essential for delivering ROI and long-term impact.