From Jaipur to the World: Inside Odyssey ’26

Three  days of conversations that reminded us how much the world of work is changing, and what it will take to build for what's next.

There is something special about seeing people you've spent years building alongside, often across different continents and time zones, finally sharing the same room.

At Partner Summit Odyssey ’26, we had the privilege of welcoming our customers, partners, advisors and extended BOT family from around the world to Jaipur.

Some relationships in that room go back nearly two decades. Others are just beginning. Each has contributed to the company we're building today.

I opened the summit with a thought from Alan Kay that has stayed with me:

“The music is not in the piano.” - It lives in the people who play it.

We've spent years building the infrastructure for global capability. But the real story has always been about the people who make it work.

And over the three days in Jaipur, that became clearer than ever.

The Conversations That Made Us Think Differently

One of the things I value most about Odyssey is the opportunity to bring different perspectives into the same conversation.AI is changing how software gets built and how services get delivered, and almost every conversation in Jaipur came back to that.

Our opening leadership conversations brought together Chris Barbin of Tercera, Glenn Weinstein of Cloudsmith, Gurvendra Suri of Tailwind and Eran Gil of AllCloud, who shared their experiences building companies and navigating change.

During our panel on AI That Works: From Pilots to P&L, investors on the panel raised an important question: when does AI efficiency become actual business value and where and how is it reported in the P&L?

Saving twenty hours of work is useful. But if that capacity doesn't translate into better outcomes or greater profitability, have we truly changed the economics of the business?

The discussion also challenged how services businesses think about their future. As AI reduces the cost of building software, the distinction between products and services is becoming less rigid. The opportunity is increasingly about owning outcomes, with the expertise to deliver them.

For me, the larger takeaway was that AI will change the way we work faster than most organizations will change the way they operate. And that gap is where leadership must focus.

The Boardroom Challenge put 19 leadership teams through six scenarios, from a security incident to an acquisition. It reminded me how different running a GCC is from planning one in a strategy workshop. On paper, every scenario has a clean answer. In the real world, execution, trust and human judgement decide it.

The Next Generation of GCCs Is Already Taking Shape

One of the most meaningful conversations came from our customers themselves.

In a panel moderated by Chris Barbin, leaders from AllCloud and Cloudsmith, alongside Abhinav Gehlot and Manish Khatri from the Jaipur GCC teams, shared their experiences building and scaling Global Capability Centers with BOT.

Different starting points, same conclusion: a GCC earns its place when its people own outcomes, not tickets.

Eran Gil, CEO of AllCloud, spoke about his ambition for a GCC that becomes deeply integrated into the organization, extending across every part of the business.

For Nick Peacock, VP of Customer Success at Cloudsmith, that integration is already visible in how the Jaipur team works directly with customers. As he shared, he would be comfortable putting anyone from the team in front of Cloudsmith's customers, a reflection of the technical depth and ownership they've developed.

Their journeys are at different stages, but both point to the same opportunity: GCCs that contribute to business outcomes through the expertise and initiative of the people building them.

AI makes this even more important. As technical execution becomes increasingly augmented, we need engineers who understand business problems and can exercise judgment.

From the Vision to the Work

These conversations also gave us an opportunity to share what we've been building behind the scenes. Deepali Puri, Ayushi Sharma and Akshay Singh Thakur, with Lisa Burton, demonstrated Odyssey , BOT's  operating system for Agentic GCCs, through a live customer journey.The demo carried one thread of context from the first sales conversation through talent discovery, onboarding and day-to-day operations.

Our engineers took that thinking further through multiple technical sessions covering agentic architectures, multi-agent orchestration, MCP and AI-driven software development.

Our bet is simple: agents carry more of the execution, and people still own the decisions.

Odyssey is our way of building toward that future. We're learning by operating it ourselves and continuously improving it through the experiences of the GCCs we support.

The Company We're Building Beyond Business

Of course, some of the most memorable moments at Odyssey had little to do with technology.

We launched Voyager, our magazine dedicated to documenting the people and stories shaping BOT's journey. As we grow, it's important that we make room to reflect on where we've come from and recognize the experiences that define us. Get the digital experience here. 

Through our Śrī initiative, our teams, their families and partners came together to create 100 Braille Snakes & Ladders boards for visually impaired children and 150 bird nests. We also heard our Workplace coordinator, Raju ji  share his personal journey of learning English, a powerful reminder of what opportunity and encouragement can make possible.

Another deeply moving moment came when Chris Barbin shared his 38-day, 1,750-mile solo row, undertaken to raise awareness and support for mental health and addiction causes. His reflections on connection and resilience reminded us that the people we work with carry lives and challenges far beyond the workplace.

These experiences matter because the kind of company we build is reflected in what we choose to make time for.

Celebrating the People Behind the Progress

Our Awards & Recognition ceremony was a moment to celebrate the people whose contributions have shaped BOT's journey, made even more meaningful by having the customers and partners they've built alongside in the room.

Beyond the main stage, some of the most memorable conversations happened in smaller, more personal settings. Untold Chapters brought women together to share stories and experiences beyond their professional identities, while Odd Tables created space for candid conversations and meaningful connections in smaller groups.

And then there were the moments in between: conversations over coffee, old friends reconnecting, new friendships forming and an evening when everyone came together in their finest traditional outfits.

These moments reminded us why we continue bringing our extended BOT family to Jaipur. The strongest partnerships are built through shared work, but they grow through the relationships we make along the way.

What We Take Forward

I came away from Odyssey ’26 encouraged by the quality of the conversations, but also with a stronger sense of responsibility for what comes next.

AI gives us an opportunity to rethink how capability is built and how businesses create value. We need to approach that opportunity with curiosity, while remaining grounded in the realities of execution.

For BOT, that means continuing to invest in Odyssey and the talent that makes our operating system work. It means listening closely to our customers and being willing to challenge our own assumptions. And it means protecting the culture that has made our growth possible.

Reflecting on his first visit to our Jaipur team, Glenn Weinstein, CEO of Cloudsmith, shared something that captured the spirit of the summit:

“The Partner Summit is a magical time for all BOTs to get together, to celebrate each other, to learn from each other.”

For someone who has been building alongside us for years, finally experiencing that community in person meant a great deal. And hearing that from a partner reinforced why we continue to create these opportunities to come together.

To everyone who travelled to Jaipur and helped make Odyssey ’26 what it was, thank you. The photos and session highlights are on our Odyssey ‘26 recap.

We called this year's summit From Jaipur to the World because it reflects an ambition we've carried for years: to build globally relevant capability from a city we deeply believe in.

The world of technology will keep changing, and so will the way we build. But if these three  days reinforced anything, it’s the line I closed the keynote with: 

This year we built a bigger piano. The music is yours.

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