What does it take to deploy AI in mission-critical environments where power, connectivity, data, and compute are limited?

Recorded live at AI4 2026 in Las Vegas, Sanjay Puri speaks with Ajay Chakravarthy, Chief AI Officer at Thales UK, about the future of Frugal AI, Trusted AI, AI agents, and autonomous systems in defense.

Ajay explains why Frugal AI goes beyond simply using smaller or cheaper models. In mission-critical environments, AI must operate reliably despite limited data, connectivity, power, and hardware constraints.

The conversation explores:

  • What Frugal AI really means
  • Why bigger AI models aren’t always better
  • AI at the edge and mission-critical environments
  • Trusted AI, explainability, and observability
  • AI agents and autonomous systems in defense
  • Human-in-the-loop vs. human-on-the-loop AI
  • Ethics by design for autonomous systems
  • AI governance and responsible AI
  • Data sovereignty and secure AI deployment
  • AI costs, token economics, and enterprise ROI
  • Open-source and open-weight AI
  • What the Chief AI Officer role really requires
  • Technical skills, communication, and change management
  • Forward Deployed Engineers and AI transformation

Ajay also shares why the CAIO needs to bridge the rapidly evolving AI landscape with an organization’s business KPIs, ROI, productivity, and engineering needs.

For CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, Chief AI Officers, defense leaders, and enterprise technology executives, this conversation explores a critical question:

How do we build AI that isn’t just powerful, but reliable, trusted, and fit for the environments where the stakes are highest?

Recorded live at AI4 2026 in Las Vegas by Knowledge Networks.

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