GenAI training tops priority list at IT cos

GenAI will become a critical component to delivery for IT services, but the industry remains very much focused on revenue growth through hiring - Mrinal Rai, Assistant Director & Principal Analyst at ISG, tells Bizz Buzz

New Growth Curve

• IT firms not to see job losses amid Gen AI-led growth
• Most IT firms will continue to focus on talent-led growth
• IT firms yet to provide revenue estimate coming from Gen AI
• However, clients keen to save cost via new Gen AI solutions

Bengaluru: Indian IT firms are investing big in reskilling of their employees in Generative AI skills apart from some companies carving separate units altogether to cash in the emerging opportunities in this space.

This is despite the fact that most IT firms are yet to see any significant upside to their revenues coming from GenAI solutions.

Experts, however, opined that GenAI would not lead to job losses in the Indian IT industry as companies will focus on headcount-led growth in coming quarters.

“GenAI will become a critical component to delivery for IT services, but the industry remains very much focused on revenue growth through hiring,” Mrinal Rai, Assistant Director & Principal Analyst at global IT consulting major, ISG, told Bizz Buzz.

As GenAI tools take the world by storm, most IT firms are investing heavily into this new technology area for offering innovative solutions.

For instance, mid-tier IT firm, Happiest Minds has recently carved out separate GenAI business unit to focus on service offerings. The company is currently training a team of 100 people in the latest technologies including AI, open source models with data understanding to singularly focus on getting more specialisation and execution in GenAI area, expecting it to generate business in FY25.

Globally, Accenture is the only IT and consulting firm that has provided some estimates with regard to revenue coming from this new technology area.

Accenture, which has committed an investment of $3 billion in AI, has already signed a total of $450 million worth of GenAI deals in the first quarter of FY24 ended November. This is a 50 per cent rise in the pipeline from $300 million in the last six months of FY23.

No Indian IT firm has yet given any estimate on topline growth coming from GenAI-led projects. However, they have said that most projects are coming with GenAI components as clients are keen to save cost through new GenAI-powered solutions.

“We are not at this stage sharing externally any views on revenues or projects and so on.What is happening today is, almost every discussion with clients involves some element of Generative AI,” Salil Parekh, CEO of Infosys, had said during the third quarter analyst call.

Meanwhile, most IT firms are reskilling their employees on a mission mode as the demand for skillsets set to rise in coming quarters.