Infosys' clients are charged up about generative artificial intelligence (AI) and the type of change that it can make for their businesses in Davos, said the IT major's CEO and MD Salil Parekh.
However, the company did not see any change in actual buying in Q3, Parekh said while speaking to Moneycontrol at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 18.
“There are some use cases, which are very significant, huge benefits that they can get,” Parekh said. Adding that there was a lot of focus on cost, efficiency, and automation programmes in the December quarter.
Parekh said there are some use-cases in generative AI where the benefits are incredible such as customer service, software development, and knowledge areas. “My sense is, as the economic environment also improves, people will look say let's start big programs on that,” he said.
“Generative AI is a fundamental change in technology and we are fortunate that we are in somewhat of a leadership position,” Parekh said.
On being asked when will discretionary spending return, Parekh said it is difficult to say. "The way we are looking at it is, we have positioned ourselves as an AI first company, we have Topaz, we are working with several large language models," Parekh said.
He said the utilisation levels have steadily gone up in the past three quarters, on being asked about the declining headcount in the IT industry in recent quarters. "We are just making sure that we become more efficient."
Parekh said as the digital, cloud, and generative AI programs start, the company will see more expansion. "We don't see that there is some sort of a trend, it is much more waiting for the economic environment, with interest rates and so on, to change and then decision-making at the large companies to change," he said.
Meanwhile, Parekh said the company narrowed the revenue guidance in Q3, as the company saw that the situation was "neither worse, neither better from from Q2 to Q3," Parekh added.
On January 11, Infosys narrowed its revenue growth guidance for the full year to 1.5-2 percent for the full year.
"At this stage, it's a little bit early for us to look at the next financial year. So as we finish up Q4, we will have a better sense," Parekh said.
Parekh said it is fortunate that Infosys has a good bench of leadership talent. He said about six-nine months ago, the company filled and moved people into new roles.
“And we see even today, there are a huge set of individuals who can do larger roles within Infosys. So at this stage, we are comfortable,” Parekh said.
He said hard work is always important and is a critical factor that everyone should look at, on being asked about the recent 70-hour-per-week work debate started by Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy.
Parekh said the company has put in place flexible approaches for employees, which has made a huge difference. “As you've seen, that (Infosys’) attrition is much lower than some of our peers.”
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