The Tata Group chief said the group is working on 100 generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) projects to have a profound impact on customer experience, productivity and efficiency across retail and manufacturing.
Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran told shareholders at the 29th annual general meeting (AGM) of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Friday that GenAI will have a major impact across industries but will also create uncertainty.
Chandrasekaran emphasizes the use of GenAI in e-commerce and manufacturing
“In e-commerce, GenAI is being used to create product catalogues, provide conversational shopping experiences and provide personalized offers,” said Chandrasekaran, who is also TCS chairman.
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“In manufacturing, GenAI can help field workers troubleshoot complex equipment by asking questions in their native language, increasing productivity. Companies are also using GenAI to analyze large volumes of documents like tender documents, significantly shortening sales cycles,” said Chandrasekaran, who became Tata Sons' chairman in February 2017.
Tata Sons is the group's holding company and holds stakes in more than 20 Tata Group companies, which had revenues of $150 billion as at the end of March 2023. Through privately held Tata Digital, the group offers grocery and food products.
GenAI includes technology-driven innovations like ChatGPT, with a wide range of capabilities including the creation of new content formats like text, audio, video, etc. Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, AI has been gaining attention worldwide, and its disruptive nature has led businesses to call it both an opportunity and a risk factor.
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Chandrasekaran's comments about Gen AI in his opening speech at TCS's annual general meeting reflected shareholder interest: Twenty of the 30 shareholders of India's largest technology services company questioned management about the impact of GenAI on TCS during the roughly three-hour meeting.
TCS's revenues last year were $29.1 billion, with dollar-based revenue growth of 4.1%. Operating margins rose 50 basis points to 24.6%.
Asked about the company's growth this fiscal year, Chandrasekaran reiterated that management intends to grow the company at a faster pace than last year. TCS hasn't issued any guidance, but CEO K Kritivasan has previously said the current fiscal year will be better than last year.
For now, TCS is the only domestic IT services company to have published metrics measuring the rise of GenAI: Announcing its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings in April, TCS said its GenAI projects were worth $900 million last year.
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TCS is ₹The company, which paid Rs 33,174.2 crore to Tata Sons through dividends and share buybacks in FY24, has emerged as the jewel in the crown of the conglomerate. The company has been in the top spot since it went public in August 2004. ₹According to Mint's analysis, Tata Sons will have Rs 2,31,394 crore to pay in dividends and share buybacks.
Accenture, which is twice the size of TCS, said in March that it had won $1.1 billion in GenAI projects in the first half of this fiscal year. Accenture, which has a fiscal year that runs from September to August, said GenAI was the fastest emerging technology to cross $1 billion in revenue.
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