Exclusive Conversation with Krishna Sai, CTO at SolarWinds, shares his vision on how AI by Design, agentic AI, and observability are transforming IT operations globally. From building resilient, AI-native infrastructures to fostering responsible innovation, he reveals what’s next for ITSM and enterprise resilience.
IT Voice- With over two decades of leadership across Atlassian, Groupon, and Polycom, what key experiences shaped your leadership philosophy as CTO at SolarWinds?
Krishna Sai- I’ve always believed that technology should serve people. Whether it’s building startups or leading global teams, I focus on solving real problems with empathy and adaptability. That mindset was shaped early on—watching my brother help build India’s space program and working in research labs where I was pushed into the deep end and told to swim.
IT Voice- How has the role of a CTO evolved in enterprise infrastructure from your early days to your current mandate overseeing engineering and architecture?
Krishna Sai- The modern CTO role has evolved from simply managing the IT ecosystem to becoming a key strategic partner in shaping long-term business value. Efficiency is no longer enough. In today’s unpredictable environment, resilience is the true differentiator. CTOs must architect systems that adapt to unknowns, not just optimize for knowns. That means embedding flexibility, observability, and AI-native capabilities into every layer of infrastructure. This also includes fostering collaboration and driving long-term vision to ensure engineering decisions support larger business objectives. With the rise of intelligent, self-healing systems, a modern CTO’s role is to responsibly and transparently steward the adoption of AI, balancing innovation with explainability, cost-efficiency, and regulatory compliance.
IT Voice- You pioneered the “AI by Design” initiative, outlining principles like privacy, fairness, transparency, and simplicity. How have these translated into real-world product innovations?
Krishna Sai- AI by Design isn’t just a framework, it’s a philosophy that puts people first. We don’t build features in isolation; we tinker, test, and experience them ourselves to ensure they solve real problems. Whether it’s reducing alert fatigue or securing data, every innovation is grounded in usability and trust. This includes securing personal data through role-based access control (RBAC), multi-factor authentication (MFA), privileged access management (PAM), and anonymization. These controls ensure sensitive data never passes through external LLMs, maintaining user trust at every layer of interaction. On the usability front, SolarWinds AI operates within the same intuitive interface users are familiar with. Instead of reinventing workflows, this enhances them, for example, by reducing alert fatigue through contextual anomaly detection that clusters and prioritizes related events.
IT Voice- As SolarWinds moves toward autonomous AIOps, what are the challenges and opportunities in implementing agentic AI in large-scale IT environments?
Krishna Sai- Agentic AI marks a shift from passive monitoring to intelligent, self-directed observability. It enables IT systems to detect anomalies, predict incidents, trigger automated remediation, and continuously optimize performance without waiting for human intervention. Organizations that have implemented agentic AI have achieved task completion speeds up to 30% faster than conventional automation methods, while also lowering operational costs by approximately 25%.
However, transitioning to agentic systems requires overcoming key challenges, like ensuring transparency of AI decisions, maintaining data quality across complex hybrid environments, and addressing the growing IT skills gap. By 2027, an estimated 80% of engineering professionals will need to reskill, underlining the need for upskilling in machine learning, AI model governance, and advanced analytics.
SolarWinds is helping organizations navigate this shift through AI by Design framework and integrated AIOps capabilities. SolarWinds Observability unifies metrics, events, logs, and traces (MELT), embedding AI-powered tools like Log Insights and Root Cause Assist to deliver context-rich, real-time insights. These features accelerate mean time to detect and resolve and help prioritize responses based on business impact.
IT Voice- How is SolarWinds architecting observability and service management solutions to support open telemetry and cross-platform integration?
Krishna Sai- SolarWinds is deeply committed to open standards like OpenTelemetry to ensure flexibility and security across hybrid IT environments. The observability architecture is designed to ingest, and process MELT data from diverse cloud-native and legacy sources, delivering a unified, real-time view of the IT infrastructure’s health. SolarWinds Observability unifies cloud-native and legacy infrastructures via a modular platform design, supporting both agent-based and agentless ingestion methods. This enables visibility across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, from AWS and Azure to Kubernetes, and onpremise infrastructures.
IT Voice- What roadmap innovations can we expect in ITSM/ITOM products as customer demands shift toward AI-driven automation and predictive analytics?
Krishna Sai- The ITSM market is projected to reach $5.07 billion by 2033, driven by a demand for smarter, automated operations. This becomes evident as over 46% of new ITSM modules launched globally since 2023 now feature AI-powered ticket resolution, virtual assistants, or automated rootcause analysis.
As users seek faster resolution and more intelligent automation, the ITSM/ITOM roadmap focuses on deeper integration between observability and service management, wherein incident detection, root cause analysis, and remediation become autonomous, reducing the need for manual intervention. As telemetry and service data converge, platforms will deliver richer context, enabling AI to make more informed, impactful decisions, reducing MTTR while elevating user experience.
IT Voice- What strategies have you used to scale global engineering teams while maintaining innovation velocity and product quality?
Krishna Sai- Scaling engineering teams globally while preserving innovation and quality requires more than just headcount—it demands a mindset. At SolarWinds, we foster a culture of curiosity, adaptability, and continuous learning. We scale to thrive in ambiguity and are motivated by impact. This startup-like mindset is supported by a strong foundation of mentorship, experimentation, and hands-on problem solving.
Overall, the global IT recruitment market is projected to grow at 7.69% annually through 2033, driven by increased investment in AI, cybersecurity, and cloud-native development. Across India, the hiring momentum is equally strong, with software roles representing around 70% of all tech openings nationwide, and the IT job market is projected to grow by 8.5%.
This anticipated boon in emerging technology talent aligns with the importance of how we at SolarWinds are “doing to understand”—from tinkering with new frameworks to building prototypes to test ideas firsthand.
IT Voice- How do you foster a culture of responsible AI engineering across distributed teams working on observability and service management tools?
Krishna Sai- To ensure responsible and scalable Agentic AI, it must be embedded within strong governance and technical frameworks. At SolarWinds, this means using ‘AI by Design’ and ‘Secure by Design’ principles, where security, privacy, and regulatory alignment are built into the platform from the start, not added later.
Enterprises should also create AI ethics committees to monitor deployments, assess impact, and guide innovation. Regular audits, feedback loops, and human oversight ensure AI agents remain aligned with company values and regulations.
Globally, regulatory momentum is accelerating as frameworks like the EU’s AI Act, the U.S. Executive Order on AI Safety are pushing companies to establish robust AI governance strategies. Similarly, for companies in India, aligning ITSM and observability platforms with MeitY’s proposed AI governance guidelines is a critical step.
IT Voice- What emerging trends in enterprise IT operations—such as edge computing, hybrid cloud, or AI-native monitoring—are reshaping SolarWinds’ product development strategy?
Krishna Sai- Enterprise IT is going through a transformation driven by three major trends: agentic AI, the expansion of hybrid cloud architecture, and AI-driven cybersecurity.
The rise of agentic AI is pushing observability and ITSM platforms beyond reactive support. These AI agents can analyze system behaviors, predict failures, and even take remedial actions autonomously. They also continuously learn from each incident to improve future responses without human oversight. In addition, hybrid cloud infrastructure has now become the norm, with 70% of IT leaders recognizing a robust hybrid cloud strategy as essential for a successful digital transformation. Lastly, AI-driven cybersecurity and zero-trust models are essential, as enterprises are embedding AI into threat detection and anomaly response to secure complex infrastructures.
These trends are guiding SolarWinds toward an AI-native observability and service management stack, built for speed and secure autonomy in modern enterprise environments.
IT Voice- SolarWinds serves hundreds of thousands of customers. How do you balance feature complexity and usability, especially when implementing AI-based tools?
Krishna Sai- SolarWinds balances feature complexity and usability by focusing on simplicity and intuitive interfaces. The platform is designed to let users select and deploy only the capabilities they require, helping reduce initial complexity and enabling gradual adoption of AI-powered observability tools.
User experience remains central to product philosophy. Features are designed to scale across environments, from small IT setups to large enterprise infrastructures, while maintaining consistent design and easy navigation. AI-based tools are integrated within existing workflows, making the AI functionality more accessible for users. Guided recommendations also ensure that users remain in control.
IT Voice- As CTO, how do you stay aligned with regulatory trends and ethical considerations—especially around AI transparency and data privacy in observability platforms?
Krishna Sai- Staying aligned with regulatory and ethical standards requires a proactive, multi-layered approach. At SolarWinds, we embed governance into the foundation of our platforms through our “AI by Design” and “Secure by Design” principles. These frameworks ensure that privacy, transparency, and compliance are not afterthoughts—they’re built into every product from the start.
Anticipating forthcoming regulations, such as the proposed Digital India Act and sector-specific AI advisories, requires continuous monitoring of policy developments from MeitY and the AI Safety Institute. These initiatives are moving toward a risk-tiered AI governance model, where high-impact systems, including AI-augmented observability platforms, may soon be required to comply with mandatory provenance standards, model transparency disclosures, and incident reporting protocols. This proactive stance also means engaging with global AI regulatory bodies and industry groups. By doing so, organizations can anticipate new standards and best practices, shifting compliance from a reactive to a proactive approach.
IT Voice- Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, what is your vision for AI’s role in transforming IT service management and operational resilience globally
Krishna Sai- AI is quickly becoming the core enabler of intelligent, resilient operations within ITSM. Globally, about 57% of IT leaders have already deployed AI agents within their IT environments over the past two years, and over 96% of enterprises intend to scale their use of AI agents further. However, while interest is high, many organizations are still working to build the necessary data foundations and governance structures to fully support autonomous workflows.
A tipping point is expected in the next 12-24 months as enterprises transition from experimentation to scaled deployment of agentic AI, which will take on increasingly complex responsibilities, from predictive incident detection to automated remediation, changing how resilience and uptime are managed. With platforms like SolarWinds offering secure, AI-powered observability solutions, adoption is expected to accelerate.
