What if the biggest AI opportunity in your company isn't a new tool or a top-down transformation, but the next time a team changes shape? If you follow this podcast, you know we usually talk about parental leave, returns, and how managers hold teams together through long absences. So here is why this one is about AI. Working alongside leaders preparing for a long leave, we kept noticing the same thing: the absence isn't only a gap to cover, it's the rare, calendar-forced moment when the work can actually be redesigned, and redesigned with AI. In this episode of the Kundra Podcast, Theresa explores that with her longtime mentor Sankar Venkatraman, Global Evangelist at LinkedIn, who spends his year in front of CHROs and CEOs across the world, focusing on accelerating product innovation, now with AI. His core idea: AI isn't a tool you add to a team, it's an operating system that changes how the team is built. The unit of work has moved from the seat to the skill. And while 90% of companies still see no return on AI, the ones who do aren't running company-wide programs, they're redesigning one team at a time, at the moment capacity changes. That's the opportunity Kundra sits on. Years in and around Silicon Valley and LinkedIn mean Theresa can bring the frameworks the best companies use, applied where they're actually doable: one targeted team, triggered by a real moment, not a 2000-person transformation. In this episode, you'll learn:• why the biggest AI opportunity is a team-level moment, not a company-wide program• the Build, Borrow, Bot framework for redesigning a team skill by skill• why the unit of work has shifted from roles to tasks• why a leave, a reorg, or a departure is the rare window where redesign actually happens• why 90% of companies see no return on AI, and what the rest do differently• what all of this means for your own career Whether you're a CEO, a business or product leader, a people leader, or a manager navigating change on your own team, this episode will help you see capacity change not as a gap to fill, but as the most practical place to start winning with AI. In this episode, we cover: 00:00 Meet Sankar (LinkedIn's Global Evangelist)04:11 The two questions, and the third option06:37 The three levels of AI maturity08:22 Why redesign only happens at pivotal moments11:33 A real team: absorbing a 40% capacity gap13:09 From roles to tasks: the Build, Borrow, Bot framework19:55 Why 90% of companies see no return on AI26:07 Who owns this, and what it means for youAbout KundraKundra keeps teams strong at the pivotal moments when capacity changes, long leaves, returns, departures, reorganizations, and AI mandates. We help companies structure continuity and redesign how the work gets done, so teams keep performing and come out stronger. This podcast is part of how we learn: conversations with leaders, founders and experts about what really happens when teams change shape, and what the strongest companies do differently. If this resonates and you'd like to see how Kundra works in practice, email theresa@kundra.ai.
