Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) aims to become the world’s largest player in AI-based technology services. Tata Group The company recently announced that its artificial intelligence (AI) services division achieved annualized revenue (ARR) of $1.5 billion. This is the first time the company has quantified its AI activities. By talking with analysts, CEO of TCS K Krithivasan said AI is now growing faster than the rest of its business. “Our quarterly growth in AI alone was up over 16.3%,” he said. CEO Krithivasan outlined a five-pronged strategy that will anchor TCS’s vision of becoming “the world’s largest AI-driven technology services company.” These include internal AI transformation, AI-driven reimagining of services, future-ready talent, making AI a reality for customers, and building a comprehensive AI ecosystem spanning infrastructure, platforms, and partnerships. The TCS CEO further said that acquisitions will also play a major role in strengthening the company’s capabilities.Talking about the demand for AI services, the Managing Director of India’s largest IT services company TCS said that AI-driven demand is visible in the BFSI, life sciences and manufacturing sectors. So far, TCS has executed nearly 5,500 AI missions for its clients. Last week, TCS announced an artificial intelligence (AI) upgrade for its widely used banking platform, TCS BaNCS. “TCS BaNCS AI Compass” combines machine learning/deep learning, generative AI and pre-built agents to help banking and securities clients adopt responsible AI tools and practices, according to an official statement.
TCS CEO on hiring AI
TCS is also strengthening its advisory and consultancy practice with a significant number of experienced hires in the category. “I think this is the right opportunity for us to look at an updated consultancy and consultancy model, which will essentially be more focused on AI analytics and coming from our strong point, which is technology,” the CEO said.TCS said 97% of its developers and engineers now have access to AI coding assistants. In some customer engagements, moving customers up the AI “autonomy curve” generated productivity gains of 25-30%, even as TCS proactively cannibalized some of its own revenue. “Automation has always been at the core of how we deliver services. But with this AI, we are moving from autonomy to autonomy,” said COO Aarthi Subramanian, adding that the human plus AI model can boost productivity at scale.
TCS completes largest acquisition ever
Earlier this month, TCS announced the acquisition of Coastal Cloud, a Salesforce consulting firm, for $700 million. This is the largest acquisition ever made by TCS to date. In October, the Mumbai-based tech giant acquired US-based ListEngage for $72.8 million, which was its first acquisition in almost a decade.“The main focus of M&A is on capabilities. Consulting is an important area where we want to build and acquire capabilities. And then market access. We will now have to start looking at geography by geography…perhaps, sector by sector, to really ask the question of where the penetration opportunities are,” Krithivasan said.