Commvault has joined the fray of technology vendors adding AI heads to their ranks with the appointment of Pranay Ahlawat as its first chief technology and AI officer (CTAIO).
Reporting to chief product officer, Rajiv Kottomtharayil, Ahlawat will oversee Commvault’s product vision and development lifecycle, focusing on helping customers advance cyber resilience, including through modern AI technologies.
“Organisations today are facing unprecedented levels of cyber threats and attacks and require innovative solutions that can help them stay ahead of bad actors and get the most value out of their data,” said Ahlawat.
“I’m thrilled to join Commvault and help build the next generation of cyber resilience solutions that address customers’ most critical security challenges.”
Commvault’s new CTAIO joins from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) where he has spent the last six years, most recently as its partner and associate director, enterprise software & cloud, advising software and SaaS companies on cloud and infrastructure.
He also globally led the product innovation and engineering topic at BCG and the firm’s thinking on the impact of genAI on software development.
Kottomtharayil added: “Pranay brings a wealth of industry expertise on how AI is evolving and revolutionising business operations.
“Commvault is excited to leverage his industry knowledge to transform our approach to AI, building advanced solutions that enhance our Data Management and Cyber Recovery Platform.”
The cyber resilience and data protection solutions provider reported a ten per cent increase in revenues to $223.3m in its latest financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended March 31, 2024.
The rise of chief AI officers
Commvault is the latest technology company to create this new position as generative AI continues to influence the market.
According to LinkedIn data, over the last five years, the number of chief AI officers, or CAIOs, has almost tripled.
Other vendors including Dell with the appointment of Jeff Boudreau, and Pax8 with the addition of Eric Stevens have done the same as a growing number of organisations name chief AI officers in an effort to capitalise on the technology.