Artificial intelligence will result in higher productivity and job losses; you need to retrain people to prepare them: N. Chandrasekaran

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) CEO N Chandrasekaran said on May 31 that artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI will lead to job losses in some areas that are getting automated, resulting in higher productivity.

He emphasized that the best solution is to retrain and prepare employees to accept this change. Chandrasekaran was addressing the 29th annual general meeting of the country’s largest software services exporter.

His comments come a month after TCS CEO and Managing Director K. Krithivasan said in an interview to “ Financial Times.that advances in artificial intelligence will lead to a reduction in the need for call centers, which will impact the industry not only in Asia but also in other regions.

Responding to shareholder queries at the AGM, Chandrasekaran said: “In some areas, AI and next-generation AI will automate activities that will result in higher productivity and job losses. But in some other cases, AI will require much greater capabilities and many more jobs will be created in certain areas, such as data management, etc., and so on… it’s a mixed bag and we need to actively use it to reskill people and prepare to They accepted the change.”

However, earlier in February, Krithivasan had said that artificial intelligence and generative artificial intelligence would not lead to job cuts or job relocation, but would only change the way the IT services giant trains its employees.

According to Chandrasekaran, generative AI will impact every industry, whether it is consumer or B2B. However, the impact on the consumer industry will be much more visible as consumers “will feel the power of AI in the way personalization happens and the experience will be better delivered to them, whether it’s financial services, health services, insurance products, retail e.t.c.”.

“In B2B, real-time visibility, supply chain visibility, data collection and analytics will all impact this, and this will be impacted by how AI evolves,” he added.

Chandrasekaran also said that at any given time, the Tata Group has at least 100 active generative AI projects in the pipeline.

In the company’s fourth-quarter FY24 results, Krithivasan said TCS has $900 million worth of AI and generative AI projects in the pipeline and has won over 200 AI orders so far this year.

In the company’s annual report, which was released on May 9, Chandrasekaran said that artificial intelligence and generative AI technologies are expected to impact every sector and country in the future.

“GenAI technologies will impact almost every sector and country in the future. Enterprises have already invested in the cloud, data infrastructure and high computing power that will support AI/GenAI. GenAI will not only improve productivity, but will also have an impact we have never seen or imagined before,” he said on the impact of generative AI.

He also stressed that after two years of recession fears and high inflation, the global macro outlook in FY25 has started to look brighter.

“After two years of recession fears, persistently high inflation and an unprecedented tightening of monetary policy, the global macro outlook now looks relatively better, with the prospect of improving economic growth, disinflation and monetary easing,” he said.

However, it remains wary of armed conflicts, which have intensified this year and continue to impact global supply chains even as the first signs of stability have begun to emerge.

According to TCS, there are many megatrends across industries around the world that are shaping enterprise priorities. These include artificial intelligence, new energy, supply chain and talent.