Mumbai, February 25 India's largest IT services company, TCS, is "not afraid" of artificial intelligence and is also comfortable with revenue "cannibalization" through the deployment of AI tools by its employees, a top official said on Wednesday.
TCS has found that senior-level employees are slower in building AI-based solutions compared to the "proficient" younger staff, its Managing Director and Chief Executive, K Krithivasan, said at the annual NTLF event here.
"We encourage our employees to go out (to the customers and use AI), even if it means cannibalizing our revenues," Krithivasan said.
TCS is "insisting" that all of its over 6 lakh employees are fluent in AI, Krithivasan said, insisting that the company is not "afraid" of the new technology taking away livelihoods.
As part of these efforts, the company has asked employees to explore how AI can be used in projects, even if it means forgoing some part of revenues, he said. Krithivasan said that everyone wants to learn the new AI skills, and there is no need to create incentives for them to learn.
However, as people climb up the hierarchy and become senior-level employees, they tend to read a lot but do not build anything on it, Krithivasan said.
It is not just about giving a few prompts to a generational AI platform like ChatGPT, he said, adding that employees have to get their hands dirty and build solutions using the AI tools.
He termed AI as a "civilizational shift", pointing out that it is democratized knowledge, which is solving problems that were unsolved for 60 years.
AI is becoming a board-level agenda now, wherein the chief information officers are being directed to scout for solutions, he said.
The new technology will increase productivity, but TCS also focuses on the benefits that can accrue to its customers while looking at the technologies.
Amid heightened concerns over governance around the use of AI, Krithivasan said TCS is looking at a situation where AI itself can govern AI by the usage of multiple agents.
Speaking at the same event, Kotak Mahindra Bank's Chief Executive and Managing Director Ashok Vaswani said the private sector lender aspires to be a "fast follower" on the AI front and leave "the tech to technologists".
