When Nishkam Batta first arrived in North America from India in his early twenties, ambition came easily. Language did not.

He moved to Canada to pursue higher education, energized by opportunity but deeply unsettled by the experience. At the time, he did not have conversational English. “I would think in my native language and translate in my head before speaking, which made even simple conversations feel intimidating,” he says.

Like many immigrants, Batta was drawn to what he describes as the “shiny” career paths. Consulting, investment banking, and roles that promised status and stability felt like the obvious goal. After completing his MBA, however, that vision collapsed. He spent nine months unemployed.

“It was a humbling period that forced me to confront both my expectations and my reality,” Batta says.

Eventually, he took a sales job, not because it fit a plan, but because it was available. That role would quietly reshape his trajectory.

“That role helped me find my voice, build confidence, and realize how much I genuinely enjoyed speaking with people,” he says. “What started as a necessity turned into clarity. I discovered that customer-facing work was where I thrived.”

Today, Batta is the founder of HonestAI by GrayCyan, an applied artificial intelligence company focused on building practical, human-in-the-loop AI systems for mid-sized organizations in the United States. Rather than selling futuristic promises, the company works at the infrastructure level of business operations.

HonestAI specializes in AI middleware that integrates with legacy ERPs, CRMs, and operational platforms already in use. Its systems automate administrative workflows, improve data consistency, and support real-world operations without requiring companies to rip and replace the software they rely on every day.

The focus is not on replacing people, but on removing friction from work that slows teams down and introduces unnecessary error, especially in manufacturing and other operationally complex industries.

Building with empathy, not hype

Batta’s experience as an immigrant founder continues to shape how he approaches leadership and company building.

Struggling to communicate fluently taught him persistence. Having to earn every conversation taught him empathy. “When you’ve had to work for every ounce of understanding, you don’t take trust lightly,” he says. “I don’t, with clients, team members, or partners.”

That mindset informs the philosophy behind his company. “We believe technology should support people, not replace them or work around them,” Batta says. “And the same goes the other way. People should trust AI and the way it decides and acts.”

Clear thinking, explainability, transparency, and human judgment are not optional for him. “They matter, especially as systems start to scale,” he says.

Rather than chasing growth for growth’s sake, Batta is deliberate about how the company expands. “We don’t chase volume for the sake of growth,” he explains. “We focus on high-quality, low-friction relationships because overloading teams is a short-term win and a long-term failure.”

When companies prioritize people, he believes the systems naturally follow. “When you genuinely care about the people involved, clients and employees alike, you design systems that grow steadily without burning anyone out.”

Why manufacturing, and why AI

Manufacturing is one of the world’s oldest and most essential industries, yet Batta saw how far behind it remained in digitization.

“It’s the backbone of our economy, yet digitization in manufacturing has always lagged,” he says.

What compelled him to build HonestAI was not flashy innovation, but friction. Legacy software, siloed systems, and decades-old workflows still dominate factory operations. Instead of focusing on executive dashboards or surface-level analytics, Batta focused on the administrative layer where real-time is lost.

HonestAI automates tasks like syncing ERPs, reading vendor PDFs, validating parts, and updating shift summaries. “That’s where the real value is,” he says.

“We’re building Agentic ERP systems, AI that doesn’t just predict, but acts predictably,” Batta explains.

Why now

Manufacturing has traditionally been cautious about adopting new technology. Batta does not see that as resistance, but responsibility.

“What’s changed is the level of pressure and the practicality of what’s now possible,” he says.

Labor shortages, supply chain volatility, and sustained cost pressure have pushed manufacturers to revisit automation with urgency. At the same time, modern APIs and middleware allow intelligence to be added to existing systems without ripping them out.

“Transparency has made the real difference,” Batta says. “We’ve opened up the AI black box by explaining every decision and action the system takes. Why a record was updated, how a document was interpreted, and where human judgment still matters.”

When manufacturers understand what AI is doing, trust follows.

Despite widespread hype, Batta remains pragmatic about AI’s limits. “We’re still far from anything resembling general or autonomous intelligence,” he says. “And that’s not a weakness. Incremental change isn’t a compromise. It’s the responsible path forward.”

Measurable impact on the factory floor

HonestAI distinguishes itself by focusing on real tasks and tying its pricing to outcomes. “If we don’t save you at least twenty-three thousand dollars per year in measurable savings, there’s no reason to pay us,” Batta says.

One example comes from a Fishbowl ERP client struggling with hours of manual entry involving vendor information, purchase orders, invoice tracking, and part validation.

“We built an AI agent that pulls data from PDFs, fills in Fishbowl fields, flags inconsistencies, and prepares clean ERP entries,” he explains. “It saved the client more than eighty hours per month.”

“That’s not theoretical AI,” Batta adds. “That’s daily impact.”

What honest AI really means

In an industry where safety, compliance, and jobs are on the line, Batta is deliberate about what the word honest represents.

“Honest AI means three things to us,” he says. “Transparency, no black box logic. Control, humans remain in the loop, always able to validate or override. And alignment, our incentives are tied to real outcomes, not hype.”

“In safety-critical, compliance-heavy environments like manufacturing, there’s no room for guesswork,” he says. “That’s why we prioritize clarity and accountability over flashy features.”

Leadership lessons from a risk-averse industry

The hardest leadership lesson Batta learned while scaling was patience.

“In technology, speed is often treated as a virtue,” he says. “Move fast, ship faster, scale as quickly as possible.”

Manufacturing, however, operates on a different clock. “It’s a risk-averse industry where trust is earned slowly and lost quickly,” he explains.

He learned that onboarding too many clients too fast creates fragility, not momentum. “Trying to scale too fast or onboard too many clients at once doesn’t create momentum. It creates fragility,” he says.

According to Batta, what ultimately changed his approach was realizing that fewer, high-trust, high-touch relationships are far more valuable than volume. “Sustainable growth comes from depth, not speed,” he added.

Looking ahead

Batta believes the next decade will bring the rise of agentic ERPs, where AI systems move beyond monitoring and complete tasks end-to-end.

“We’ll move from static systems to dynamic ones that adapt, predict, and act,” he says.

HonestAI aims to help shape that future responsibly. “Our goal is to make AI accessible, accountable, and deeply embedded in day-to-dayEntrepreneur work in manufacturing,” Batta says. “We’re not here to replace jobs. We’re here to remove the friction so people can do their best work.”

For an immigrant entrepreneur who once struggled to find his voice, the mission feels intentional. HonestAI is not about louder promises or sweeping disruption. It is about building trust, one system and one relationship at a time.