Leading in the AI Era: Using the Technology Without Losing Control

At executive level, successful adoption of artificial intelligence is not measured by how sophisticated the tools are. It is measured by how clearly the technology helps leaders make strategic decisions. Amid a flood of data and operational information, the hardest part is filtering what genuinely carries value — the signal — from what is merely noise.

Ika Nugrahanti, a Strategic Enterprise Architect at Telkom Indonesia, knows that dilemma well. Responsible for the organisation’s strategic architecture, she saw how much it matters to have a mature framework for using AI in support of the leadership team.

That is what led Ika to join the ITB x RevoU programme: Data-Driven & AI Decision Making for Leaders.

A Shift in Thinking: AI as the Assistant, People Still Leading the Decision

"When I decided to take this programme, I already had a mission for what I wanted out of it. The plan was to design a system to help top management where I work make better decisions," Ika explains.

So how did Ika reframe the role of AI in enterprise decision-making? Here is her view.

One of the biggest assumptions to shift for Ika was how to position AI proportionally inside an organisation. AI is not there to replace people in setting direction; it is an amplifier for a leader’s own thinking.

"The assumption that changed was how we position AI correctly. Not leaning on it too heavily, but placing it as an assistant that enhances our ability to make decisions. People still take the lead and remain the ones who own those decisions," Ika says.

With that framing, AI adoption at organisational level can move with more direction, without eroding the weight of executive intuition and strategic judgement.

Separating Signal From Noise: The Key to Precise Business Decisions

Beyond repositioning AI, the most valuable insight Ika took away concerns how information qualifies for a decision in the first place. In industry practice, plenty of business decisions risk going wrong not for lack of data but because they were made on noise — raw information that looks dominant yet carries no strategic value.

"What is really valuable is how to separate real information — signal — from noise. In my experience, a great many decisions get made simply because noise influenced them, not real information," she says.

Through the data-handling and decision-making frameworks taught in the ITB x RevoU programme, Ika gained a far more structured approach to filtering operational data into insight that is sharp and credible.

Academics and Practitioners Together: What Sets the ITB x RevoU Curriculum Apart

For an executive with an enterprise architecture background, choosing a development programme calls for a hard look at how comprehensive the curriculum is. Ika points to the ITB and RevoU collaboration as adding something rarely found elsewhere.

"What makes it different, and what drew me in, is the curriculum and the speakers involved. There is a compelling blend of academics and practitioners that other training programmes may not offer much of," Ika says.

That combination of academic depth and real case studies from industry practitioners gave Ika a solid base for delivering on her mission: designing a decision support system for Telkom Indonesia’s top management.