In an era where hybrid work and digital transformation are redefining employee expectations, Kyndryl is leading with a human-centered approach to IT. In this exclusive conversation with Jatinder Singh, Executive Editor at CIO&Leader, Ivan Dopplé, Global Practice Leader, Digital Workplace at Kyndryl shared how personalization, observability, and Agentic AI are transforming workplace experiences from onboarding to AI-led support. Discover what the digital workplace of 2030 looks like and how CIOs can start preparing today.
CIO&Leader: Many organizations struggle with fragmented user journeys and inconsistent digital experiences. How does Kyndryl address this challenge with its personalization strategy?
Ivan Dopplé: At Kyndryl, we view fragmented user journeys as one of the most pressing challenges organizations face today, especially in hybrid and distributed environments. Our response is grounded in a comprehensive personalization strategy central to our Connected Experience vision within Digital Workplace Services. Rather than offering one-size-fits-all tools, we focus on tailoring every aspect of the digital experience to the individual, based on role, location, device preference, and work style.
Through deep analytics, persona mapping, and AI-driven insights, we build adaptive digital workplaces where users are greeted with content, services, and workflows that are genuinely relevant to them. Whether automating access to frequently used applications, recommending knowledge articles based on behavior, or simplifying onboarding journeys for new hires, personalization ensures that each employee’s experience is frictionless and consistent, regardless of platform, geography, or device.
What’s critical here is scale. For a global workforce like many of our clients, especially in dynamic markets like India, we make personalization both centrally governed and locally relevant, respecting compliance and cultural nuances while maintaining a unified experience. Ultimately, we’ve found that personalization boosts engagement and productivity and serves as a differentiator in talent attraction and retention in the modern enterprise.
CIO&Leader: Observability is often discussed in the context of systems, not employee experience. What does “Managed Observability” mean in the workplace context, and how does it transform IT support and service delivery?
Ivan Dopplé: At Kyndryl, Managed Observability goes far beyond traditional IT monitoring. In our Digital Workplace practice, we’ve redefined Observability as a human-centered capability, designed to monitor systems and illuminate how employees experience technology in real time.
This means capturing and analyzing signals across devices, apps, collaboration platforms, and network layers to understand technical performance and user sentiment. Are employees experiencing lags in their collaboration tools? Are certain workflows slowing down productivity in specific geographies? Managed Observability helps answer these questions proactively.
It’s the intelligence layer of our Connected Experience strategy, providing CIOs with actionable insights to preempt disruptions, rather than react to them. Instead of waiting for a service desk ticket to reveal an issue, our clients use Observability to flag anomalies early, identify trends across personas, and automatically trigger fixes through integrated automation.
This approach is especially transformative in complex environments like India, where diverse user bases and legacy systems often coexist. By leveraging Managed Observability as a service, we help clients shift to a predictive, experience-led IT model, driving not just operational efficiency but also higher employee satisfaction and retention.
CIO&Leader: What new KPIs or frameworks should be adopted by a CIO to measure the success of hybrid workplace initiatives?
Ivan Dopplé: To measure the success of hybrid work, CIOs must move beyond infrastructure metrics. We recommend a framework centered on Experience, Engagement, and Enablement. Key KPIs include digital adoption rates, employee sentiment (via pulse surveys), productivity metrics tied to collaboration tools, and even digital friction scores. Well-being indicators and attrition rates offer additional insight into sustainability. The goal is to connect technology performance with human outcomes and ensure our hybrid strategies are operationally efficient but also experience-led and inclusive.
CIO&Leader: How is Agentic AI different from conventional automation or virtual assistants, and how does it impact enterprise productivity and resilience, especially in India?
Ivan Dopplé: Agentic AI represents a leap beyond traditional automation or virtual assistants. It’s not just about executing pre-programmed tasks—it’s about enabling contextual, autonomous decision-making across the enterprise. At Kyndryl, Agentic AI is a foundational component of our Digital Workplace Services and central to our Connected Experience delivery.
Where conventional automation might handle a password reset, Agentic AI can analyze service desk patterns, preemptively recommend workflow optimizations, and dynamically resolve issues without human intervention. It understands nuance, adapts to new information, and collaborates with users as a digital co-worker.
In the Indian market, where enterprises are scaling rapidly and digital adoption is soaring, we’re seeing Agentic AI deliver exponential productivity gains. For example, it enables multilingual support for diverse employee populations, intelligently routes IT requests to the proper channels, and learns from user interactions to enhance future performance.
The impact is profound—fewer manual interventions, faster time to resolution, and employees freed up to focus on strategic work. Agentic AI is not just a support function; it’s becoming the intelligent nervous system of the workplace.
CIO&Leader: Shifting from break-fix support to proactive, AI-led models marks a significant mindset change. How are CIOs responding, and what are the early outcomes?
Ivan Dopplé: CIOs are increasingly embracing this proactive, AI-led model because it addresses two of their top concerns: downtime and employee experience. By embedding AI across service delivery—from predictive ticketing to automated remediation—we’re seeing measurable outcomes: 30–50% reduction in incident volumes, faster mean-time-to-resolution, and a noticeable uptick in user satisfaction scores. This shift isn’t just technical—it’s cultural. Forward-thinking CIOs champion this change as a business enabler, not just an IT upgrade.
CIO&Leader: Employee experience is increasingly seen as a competitive advantage. How are enterprises using digital workplace innovation to attract and retain top talent?
Ivan Dopplé: Employee experience has become a front-line differentiator in the war for talent. At Kyndryl, we see this clearly in our work with clients globally and in India. Forward-looking organizations are no longer asking “What tools do we offer?”—”How do our people feel when they use them?”
Our Connected Experience strategy is built around this premise—designing workplaces that adapt to the employee, not the other way around. We help clients implement personalized digital onboarding, intelligent service delivery, and frictionless collaboration tools that reduce cognitive load and elevate engagement.
Workplace innovation today is about creating fluid, human-centric environments where AI and automation support—not replace—people. Whether it’s enabling deskless workers to access services via mobile or using sentiment analysis to adapt leadership communications, the focus is on experience as the driver of retention, productivity, and trust.
CIO&Leader: From your experience with global clients, how do organizations scale employee experience initiatives across regions while ensuring consistency, compliance, and cultural relevance?
Ivan Dopplé: Scalability doesn’t mean uniformity. Our approach with global clients is to anchor on a core experience architecture—consistent platforms, integrated Observability, and common KPIs—while allowing regional flexibility for compliance, language, and cultural nuance. We partner with local businesses and HR leaders to tailor delivery where needed, without fragmenting the experience. Whether it’s enabling right-to-disconnect policies in Europe or language localization in India, the key is balance: global consistency with local resonance.
CIO&Leader: Many organizations still treat AI and automation as bolt-ons. How can leaders ensure these technologies are fully embedded into their digital workplace DNA?
Ivan Dopplé: Embedding AI and automation requires more than technology—it requires intent. Leaders must start by aligning these capabilities to business goals and employee needs. That means co-creating solutions with users, integrating automation into core workflows (not just edge cases), and continuously monitoring impact through observability frameworks. At Kyndryl, we work with CIOs to instill a digital-first culture—upskilling teams, promoting adoption, and making AI a native layer of work. It’s not about tools; it’s about transformation.
CIO&Leader: What emerging technologies are most impactful in closing the gap between physical and digital workspaces for hybrid teams?
Ivan Dopplé: The most impactful technologies today are those that create shared context and continuity across locations, roles, and devices. At Kyndryl, we see augmented reality (AR), immersive collaboration platforms, and AI-powered context engines as key tools to bridge this divide.
AR is enabling real-time, hands-free assistance in field service and training. Spatial collaboration tools are helping hybrid teams brainstorm and innovate as if they were in the same room. Intelligent scheduling assistants ensure seamless coordination across time zones and workstyles.
We integrate these technologies into the Connected Experience fabric, ensuring they’re accessible, personalized, and observable. In doing so, we help organizations move beyond mere connection to true collaboration and creativity, no matter where people are.
CIO&Leader: As we look toward the future, what does the digital workplace of 2030 look like to you, and what must CIOs begin doing today to prepare?
Ivan Dopplé: By 2030, the digital workplace will be agentic, adaptive, and deeply human-centric. Employees will interact with AI co-pilots, not just apps. Physical or virtual workspaces will respond to individual preferences and health signals. Learning and productivity will be continuous, contextual, and autonomous. To prepare, CIOs must start now: modernize infrastructure for flexibility, embrace AI as a core design principle, and embed Observability to remain continuously in tune with evolving user needs. The workplace of tomorrow begins with action today, and the most decisive CIOs are already moving.