AI continues to be a key theme across corporate circles for India though international brokerage house Jefferies, in a recent strategy report earlier this week, stated that “India is seen as an ‘anti-AI’ trade.” However, the very same week, the country’s largest largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services outlines its aspiration to become the world’s largest AI-led technology services company through five pillars. Meanwhile, Accenture with advanced AI scaling up rapidly, stated that it will not be reporting Advanced AI revenue from next quarter, as it sees AI embedded across all client work.
In fact, advanced AI is integrated in everything and is increasingly embedded in large transformation projects with the increasing momentum and adoption of enterprise AI. As the AI wave continues globally, can Indian IT services pivot in time to be on the right side of the GenAI wave. Here is a look at top action across the world of artificial intelligence.
TCS – The big AI pivot
The TCS analyst day was held on December 17 when the tech bellwether unveiled details about its five-pillar AI strategy. TCS highlighted that it has $11 billion of annualised revenues from newer and faster-growing areas of technology spend (AI services, interactive, cybersecurity, cloud, enterprise solutions, and IOT and digital engineering). Its AI services revenue is currently annualising $1.5 billion of revenues. It is being used by 85% of its clients with over $20 million in annualised revenues and 90% of its clients commanding annualised revenue exceeding $100 million.
Brokerages hailed the announcement and remained largely bullish on TCS. Nuvama sees an 11% upside while Motilal Oswal sees a whopping 37% upside for the tech major. Morgan Stanley echoed the sentiment too.
Accenture – Advanced AI scaling up rapidly
In the global context too, the AI-led transformation strategy continues to scale up for Accenture, driving growth visibility despite longer deal conversion cycles. It was one of the first IT companies to disclose AI figures in its earnings but now the company stated that going forward it will not be reporting Advanced AI booking/revenue from next quarter, “as it sees AI embedded across all client work, making the metric meaningless.”
In the Indian context, analysts believe that with Accenture delivering revenue growth at the top end of guidance, the results have a neutral implication for the Indian IT sector stocks.
Jefferies sees India as ‘anti-AI’ play
However, in the global context, International brokerage house, Jefferies says that the US growth outlook points to an acceleration in 2026. Given the supportive backdrop for equities, Jefferies believes a large variable in India’s performance has been the global AI trade. Given India’s perceived negative leverage to AI, a reversal here could come as a positive. Jefferies sees India as an anti-AI play.
AI to add $500 billion to India’s MSME economy
India, could be lagging in the global context, in terms of AI adoption, a study by FICCI- BCG report estimates that AI may add $500 billion to India’s MSME economy. The report projected that India’s AI market has the potential to reach $17 billion by 2027. This could be well over, 80% of enterprises ranking AI among their top three strategic priorities. However, the study also pointed out the contrast that “one-third of the companies across the globe are able to convert the AI investments into sustained financial returns.”
In the broader perspective, global firms like Accenture continue to see advanced AI projects, including agentic AI. This helps build cloud-based data enabled foundation, processing thousands of transactions. Indian IT majors like TCS have also joined the global AI overdrive. But can India optimise the revenue opportunity that the global AI push embodies? For now, as TCS highlighted, “AI-led internal transformation” is seen as a priority.