Gen AI-Not another tech cycle, is a civilizational shift

Tata Sons and TCS Chairman N Chandrasekaran has singled out generative AI (Gen AI) as the most transformative force in 2024, achieving near-human reasoning capabilities and redefining analytics, customer experience, and marketing.

“Gen AI is not just another tech cycle, it is a civilisational shift. Its widespread adoption is accelerating, powered by parallel advances in semiconductors, cloud computing, quantum technologies, robotics, and energy innovation,” he wrote in a letter to shareholders as part of TCS’ latest annual report.

TCS is pursuing four strategic vectors to establish itself as a leader in this AI-first world. These include creating a large pool of AI agents to work alongside employees, delivering solutions through a human-plus-AI model, investing in AI data centres and cloud infrastructure, and forging industry-best partnerships with hardware providers, solution innovators, and start-ups.

“This integrated approach will help us bring the best capabilities to every customer, ensuring they are future-ready, resilient, and competitive. We remain steadfastly committed to leading the industry with purpose, innovation, and responsibility,” he added.

Companies across the technology ecosystem and broader businesses are putting in place AI adoption strategies, refining their proprietary data to better harness results, and integrating AI and AI agents into their systems to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

Chandrasekaran cautioned that, to lead in this new world defined by AI, the IT industry must evolve. Many traditional IT business services are now rapidly being automated, including coding and testing, which are reshaping the software development life cycle. Agentic AI is also being deeply embedded into enterprise systems.

“TCS is proactively leading this change. We have systematically infused AI across our offerings and built intelligent agent solutions throughout the value chain. In 2025, we will have the largest AI-trained workforce in the industry and have launched our enterprise-grade Gen AI platform: TCS WisdomNext,” he added.

Earlier this week, TCS said it would split its AI.Cloud business into two separate units to drive higher growth in its artificial intelligence cloud business. The company is actively hiring AI experts from the market while also enhancing internal capabilities by updating training programmes for existing employees. Business Standard