AI is no longer an add-on
Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman of 5F World and GTT Data Solutions
The encouraging growth of AI projects reported by TCS can be taken as a sign that AI is now becoming integral to the business processes and systems of organisations and the opportunities for all significant IT services players will increase. It has been widely expected that AI projects, led by the march of agentic AI will cross the Rubicon from promise to performance and this is an encouraging signal that large scale AI deployment is beginning with consequential benefits for AI designers and implementers.
Why has the move from generative AI to agentic AI created a new wave of opportunity? Traditional large learning models were dependent on the right prompts, whereas agents when deployed in any business process are able to understand preferences over a period of time and make decisions which are unique to the current context. What this means is AI will no longer be an addition to a process; it will force a reimagination of the process and place a hierarchy of agents to deliver outcomes with very little human intervention.
While the soothsayers of doom may see this trend as the beginning of an artificial general intelligence revolution that replaces humans in most business processes, the opportunity for strategic partners to large corporations will be to initiate and assist in the process reimagination, lead the reengineering and agentic AI deployment effort and take complete ownership of the transformation programme. Expect this to reflect in top and bottom lines in future quarters for the IT industry!
Integration & accountability to drive next phase
CP Gurnani, Co-founder and vice chairman, AIONOS
AI marks a defining inflection point for India’s IT industry, where it is no longer an experimental lab concept but an embedded capability delivering measurable outcomes. The early phase of AI adoption was dominated by proofs of concept and experimentation driven largely by curiosity and competitive pressure. That phase is now giving way to production-grade deployments tied to tangible outcomes such as cost optimisation, productivity gains, faster decision cycles, and improved customer experience.
What we are seeing with billion-dollar annualised AI revenues is therefore not just scale, but a decisive shift from excitement to economics. In my view, AI is no longer a discrete service line or a “special project”; it is becoming deeply embedded into core IT services, from application modernisation and infrastructure to data platforms, cybersecurity, and business process transformation.
The next phase of industry growth will be driven by integration and accountability. AI will no longer exist as a standalone practice area and will instead become the foundational enabler across every digital transformation programme.
As expectations around results and efficiency rise, Indian IT firms will be compelled to quantify AI-led impact. Not just in terms of revenue, but through tangible gains in productivity, agility, resilience, and decision quality for clients. Over the coming quarters, transparency is expected to rise. The true leaders will be those who can seamlessly combine deep domain expertise, data maturity and responsible AI frameworks to deliver scalable and governed transformation.
Move past fear, resist hype
Keshav Murugesh, Group CEO – WNS, part of Capgemini
Artificial intelligence has spent the last few years oscillating between two extremes: fear and fascination. Anxiety about displacement, opacity and loss of control sits alongside uncritical excitement about exponential gains and limitless possibility.
What we are seeing now is a necessary correction, moving away from emotional extremes toward economic reality. The real story is not AI as a discrete technology, but AI as an operating paradigm. As it moves from experimentation into production, value is no longer defined by pilots or model performance. It is defined by how deeply intelligence is embedded into core operations. This is where AI-powered Intelligent Operations become decisive. When AI is combined with domain expertise, process ownership and outcome accountability, it starts generating ‘real value’.
Human ingenuity, grounded in domain excellence, remains essential. AI can scale intelligence, but it cannot replace judgment, context or accountability. The strongest models are those where human expertise guides how intelligence is applied, governed and trusted across complex operations.
As intelligence becomes pervasive, revenue impact follows. This all-encompassing shift opens up as much as 70% of the market that was previously not addressed. Not by adding tools, but by re-shaping how work is performed and value is delivered. The firms that lead will move past fear, resist exaggeration and embed intelligence at the heart of operations.