How IT sector is shape-shifting with artificial intelligence

Top companies tell stories of enhanced productivity & creativity

Even as the debate whether artificial intelligence is indeed eating up jobs rages on, with fresh data to either support or negate the claim being thrown up regularly, there is no argument about the fact that AI is a tool to enhance productivity and efficiency.

Microsoft and LinkedIn’s recent release of the 2024 Work Trend Index highlights the transformative impact of AI in the workplace, with 92% of knowledge workers in India using generative AI at work. The data underscores the growing confidence in AI’s potential to redefine work and drive the next wave of innovation, with 72% bringing their own AI tools to enhance productivity. In the information technology sector, companies that FE spoke with, including Microsoft, Wipro, HCLTech, Genpact, and LTTS, confirmed that customer service and interaction is one domain in which they have employed generative AI for automation. And, industry experts mostly talk along the lines of reskilling, upskilling, and skill shift. “Our employees are embracing Azure OpenAI and Microsoft Copilot in Microsoft 365 to transform their work, for example, summarizing conversations, receiving coaching feedback, presentations, case studies, and digital art. Azure-powered virtual assistants are delivering hyper-personalized experiences across different verticals like healthcare for processing claims, entertainment for sports fans while sales teams leverage Viva Sales to nurture leads and close deals more effectively,” Puneet Chandok, president, Microsoft India and South Asia, told FE on the shift happening in its operations. “At any given time, dozens of teams at Microsoft are actively working on GenAI projects, eager to adopt new AI tools to enhance productivity and foster creativity. The era of AI is truly here, reshaping how we conduct business,” he expanded.

Wipro launched ai360 innovation ecosystem to infuse AI into its processes and tools to enhance productivity and value among its workforce and to improve the employee and customer experiences across the organization. “At Wipro, we are our first client or Client Zero. Our AI implementation strategy is focused on three main areas — growth by developing better solutions and ways of selling, profitability through efficiency gains, and enhancing overall employee experience,” Anup Purohit, chief information officer, Wipro, told FE. The company is using GenAI-based technologies in internal processes and operations across legal, HR, sales, and marketing, and claims to see productivity gains. For example, in quality engineering and testing, they have seen a 20%-30% improvement across test cases, test scripts, and test result analytics. Collaborating with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for research and upskilling, the company has trained over 2,25,000 employees in basic GenAI fundamentals and at least 30,000 have been given advanced training tailored to their specific roles. It uses tools like MS Copilot and its own AI-powered sales assistant Eliza to support a 3,000-member sales force. For business productivity, it uses iAspire, a career management platform that offers customized learning journeys, skill enhancement recommendations, and customized training opportunities for its workforce, while AI program Wally delivers personalized performance management coaching with appraisal updates, goal setting, and progress tracking. “Our AI-powered enterprise chatbot for self-service is currently being used by nearly all our employees and has served about 6.5 million queries. On average, the chatbot responds to employees in 6 seconds, significantly improving productivity in critical tasks like approvals and onboarding as well as reducing the cost to serve,” said Purohit of Wipro.

HCLTech said they have integrated GenAI into every facet of their business. It has invested in GenAI platforms like AIForce and AIFoundry, to drive business impact. “AIForce for software engineering has enabled accelerated outcomes for our technical teams, resulting in substantial productivity and quality gains”, Vijay Guntur, chief technology officer and head of ecosystems at HCLTech, told FE. The company said upskilling and reskilling are the center of its strategy to meet the demands of processes transformed by GenAI. “This fiscal, we have committed to train an additional 50,000 techies in AI and GenAI skills, with a focus on data/AI/GenAI developer skills and a special emphasis on creating a cohort of data/AI principals,” said Guntur. Genpact said it has seen user satisfaction double with an AI assistant for its global IT helpdesk, adding that they have also reduced service desk staff by 30%. They intend to include Cora AI assistant for HR, finance, sourcing, and other functions. The company said its GenAI-powered tool AI Guru, which makes personalized learning recommendations to over 60,000 employees globally, is increasing productivity, and senior executives are amplifying their expertise with skilling platform Genome. Listing how Microsoft’s Azure OpenAIsuite has been used to create a ‘GenAI playground’ for employees to be more effective in their work, Vidya Rao, chief information and transformation officer of Genpact told  FE that it has helped employees innovate and improve 120 unique use cases; enhance research productivity by 80% with time reduced from two weeks to two days; increase productivity by 70% in training, reducing assessment generation from 120 minutes to 10 minutes, and increase software development efficiency by 30% in coding and 50% in test case generation.

Rao said AI tools in financial functions have enhanced vendor management automation with 85% accuracy in response and doubling supplier satisfaction. “This data-driven approach, coupled with real-time communication, is driving favourable deal negotiations and reduced disputes. It has streamlined invoice and payment tracking,” said Rao, adding, “We have implemented a large language model-based digital assistant, which uses advanced natural language processing and machine learning to streamline tax document submissions. This has led to a 53% reduction in support tickets and significantly improved employee experience.” L&T Technology Services (LTTS) said it is expanding its team of AI specialists and implement cutting-edge solutions across mobility, technology and sustainability segments. LTTS CEO and Managing Director, Amit Chadha told FE the company is upskilling thousands of its engineers over the next three years on NVIDIA software, particularly NVIDIA AI Enterprise, to improve customer interaction through natural language processing and speech recognition, streamline production processes and quality control using computer vision and machine learning. It also intends to enhance medical diagnostics and treatments through advanced image analysis and natural language generation.

“Although it’s challenging to quantify the benefit at this stage, the synergy between human intelligence and AI promises enhanced organizational efficiency, better decision-making, innovation, and sustained growth,” hoped Chadha. Happiest Minds Technologies has identified over 10 internal functional areas, where GenAI can drive efficiency and innovation, spanning engineering, business, and operational domains and claims to have successfully implemented 10 use cases across key functions like legal, HR, talent acquisition, and marketing to streamline processes, enhance decision-making, and improve overall productivity.

Sridhar Mantha, president & CEO of Generative AI Business Services at Happiest Minds, told FE the company is using GenAI in its engineering processes to enhance developer productivity keeping customer acceptance of tools surrounding privacy concerns, security, code generation, and quality management in mind. Mantha said this ensures their approach is flexible, customer-focused, and aligned with industry best practices. The company is using GenAI tools like Legal Bot 1.0 to access and query contracts, Smart Citation Maker to improve citation quality and reduce follow-ups, HR Policy assist to access information quickly, Resume Matcher Pro to match resumes with job descriptions to speed up the hiring process and rescue recruitment cost. “These tools act as job facilitators by augmenting capabilities of our people. For example, tools like the Sales Assistant and Marketing Content Generator streamline repetitive tasks, allowing teams to focus on more strategic and creative aspects of their roles. In technical roles, AI-powered solutions like the Field Technician Support system provide instant access to critical information, facilitating faster and more effective trouble shooting,” said Mantha. With its Generative AI Business Services, Mantha said they are using AI as job creators in the tech sector and have been able to create new roles within the company with more than 100 members working on the development and deployment of innovative GenAI solutions across various industries.