Infosys handles 50 client projects using generative AI, says CEO Salil Parekh

Chairman Nandan Nilekani cautioned that the advances in generative AI are not without their fair share of complexities.

The use of AI was among the prominent themes put forth by Infosys shareholders to the leadership during its annual general meeting on June 28, with questions surrounding AI replacing humans, productivity, risks and more. According to Chief Executive Officer Salil Parekh, the company — which recently announced an AI-first offering, has 50 client projects where the company is using generative AI.

“We have today 50 active client projects where we are using generative AI and this is becoming an increasing part of the new world which is going to be defined on an AI-first basis,” Parekh said.

This comes with the company looking to double down on AI. At the time of the launch of Infosys Topaz, the company said that it was having conversations with over 300 clients about it.

In his address, Chairman Nandan Nilekani cautioned that the advances in generative AI are not without their fair share of complexities — and that several practical, ethical and intellectual property-related issues are still unresolved.

“We know that the path to scaling AI in the enterprise is far from simple. And yet, the AI-first strategy we’ve embraced is already working for us. We have redesigned our organisation to judiciously balance people, technology, and process, while also executing work by segmenting it into cognitive tasks,” he said.

AI and productivity

However, while answering shareholder questions, Nilekani said that there are several short-term issues with AI and that while people believe that there is an extinction risk around humanity, they believe that AI has many possible powerful use cases.

He added that with the right guardrails, AI can be a force for good.

“We will use AI using our Topaz infrastructure and AI-first thinking to bring about transformation of our clients. We will do that using responsible AI — make sure that the AI follows regulatory rules, privacy rules, accuracy rules. We believe that AI can be a force for good with the appropriate guardrails,” Nilekani said.

Among the other concerns surrounding the capabilities of generative AI is that it will replace humans at least in repetitive tasks. In response to whether it will replace humans in the workforce, Nilekani said it has the potential to improve productivity. “We have found that the more qualified the more experienced a person is, you can derive more benefit from AI, like automatic code generation. Definitely, productivity will go up,” he added.

According to CEO Parekh, the company is seeing productivity improvements ranging from 10 percent to 30 percent in different areas. On the question of whether it makes workers redundant, Parekh added that they see a huge level of new type of work.

“Our view is most times when new technologies are coming, they have an impact which changes [how] our clients look at new technologies and that expands the type of work that those new technologies are providing,” he said.

Within the company, Parekh said they are taking their software development modules and approaches, particularly in the product business, and “putting them through the large language model to enhance productivity”, adding that the impact of this will be made through the next few quarters and years.

Demand environment

The chatter around generative AI also comes as IT companies operate in a difficult demand environment, with the guidance’s revenue guidance for FY24 at 4-7 percent.

Chairman Nilekani said that the receding pandemic ended one set of challenges, but its aftermath created new ones. “The cocktail of inflation, interest rates, geopolitics, war, demand volatility, supply chain dislocations, the shift from efficiency to resilience and security, all morphing quickly and without warning is upon us,” he said, adding that they must be flexible.

Parekh said that the overall demand environment has changed with the global economy slowing down. “We see now more attention of clients moving from digital and cloud transformation to cost efficiency and automation,” he said.

When questioned about the growth of cloud, Parekh said that becomes the base foundation as companies look to move into the digital age.