Tarantula Trail: The New Journey For Leaders To Embrace AI

KUALA LUMPUR, 11 June 2026 – Malaysia’s corporate leaders must humanise with artificial intelligence rather than watch from the sidelines, as the gap between awareness and readiness widens across the country’s boardrooms.

The distinction lies not in strategy or budget but in leaders personally getting familiar with AI and integrating it into their own work.

“Leaders need to take the first step to get themselves to humanise with AI, as in familiarise, capitalise, understand, interpret and use it for their own benefit because awareness alone is no longer enough,,” Futurefirst Solutions Sdn Bhd co-founder Shankar Nagalingam said at the Summit of Titans II, themed “Decode AI. Reclaim the Future”, held yesterday.

He said leaders who continued to wait and watch rather than act on AI’s impact risked falling behind.

The conclave, which drew more than 300 C-suite executives, also saw the launch of Tarantula Trail, a new leadership venture by Futurefirst Solutions built on NETRA, a trademark framework centred on five traits: Neuroplasticity, Neuroempathy, Technosapient, Regenerative and Agentic. 

Tarantula Trail is the first in the world to combine two elements in a leadership environment; technology-based assessment using EEG brainwave, AI facial recognition and voice modulation, and a cinematic experience where participants watch a film portraying distinct leadership styles to identify their own gaps. 

“We are using technology that no one in the world is using in a leadership environment to connect and interpret future capabilities. Eventually, you can use this for hiring, promotion and organisational succession planning, to determine whether individuals have the traits needed for the future,” Shankar said.

The Tarantula Trail

He added that the programme reads how leaders truly think, feel and decide, elevating human capabilities no machine can replace. 

Unlike conventional assessments, he said the programme identifies individual gaps through technology rather than questionnaires and the reliability of its brainwave measurement surpassed that of a lie detector.. 

Meanwhile, co-founder Dr Chanthiran Veerasamy highlighted the cinematic element was key to creating the kind of self-realisation conventional training could not. 

“Cinematic experience gives you that immersive learning experience, whereas the validation is through the AI app and EEG technology,” he said. 

The full programme, including its cinematic production, is expected to be completed by year-end. 

Summit of Titans II drew a formidable line-up of industry leadership. Academician Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Datuk Dr. Ir. Ahmad Tajuddin Ali officiated the conclave, while Managing Director and Group CEO of Green Packet, Datuk Wira Shahul Hameed Shaik Dawood launched the Tarantula Trail publications. He was joined on stage by PIKOM Chief Executive Officer Ong Kian Yew and Malaysian Institute of Human Resource Management President Simon Benjamin. 

Their presence underscored the summit’s standing as a premier meeting point for Malaysia’s business, technology and human-capital leaders.

Meanwhile, keynote speaker Professor Keith Carter, an AI strategist and TEDx speaker, said whether AI replaced or empowered people depended entirely on leadership intent. CEOs with vision, he said, were bringing AI into their organisations not to cut people but to unlock human potential. 

Waiting gets punished in 2026, he added, saying that organisations that delayed action risked being left behind. 

The Summit of Titans II comes as AI moves beyond pilot programmes into the core of business operations across Malaysia. 

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