TCS CEO K Kritivasan said the need for call centers across Asia could be “minimal” within a year at the earliest.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Kritivasan said that while there have been no layoffs yet, generative AI is being widely adopted among multinational clients and is poised to revolutionize traditional call center operations. He said there was.
“In an ideal stage, if you ask me, there should be minimal call centers where incoming calls come from,” he told the FT. “We are in a situation where technology needs to be able to predict incoming calls and proactively address customer pain points.”
He believes chatbots powered by generative AI will be designed to analyze customer transaction history and perform tasks traditionally handled by call center agents.
The potential impact of generative AI on white-collar jobs such as call center agents and software developers is causing anxiety among policymakers around the world.
India, known for its back-office services, is facing a particularly severe impact, with the $48.9 billion IT and business process outsourcing industry employing more than 5 million people, according to Nasscom.
When asked about the impact this will have on employment, Kritivasan reasoned that the demand for technology talent will increase, not decrease, and emphasized the need for workforce training to meet this demand, especially in India.
There is growing concern about the impact of AI on jobs, especially in India's $250 billion-plus technology sector.
TCS is a major player in India's technology industry, with over 600,000 employees and annual revenues of nearly $30 billion.
However, the TCS CEO cautioned against overestimating the immediate benefits of generative AI, arguing that the true impact will be more long-term.
In a report, Nasscom predicted that less than 20% of the 1.5 million Indian engineering students who graduate each year find employment in the industry.
“If we could get maybe 50 per cent of people into universities, we would be able to provide more jobs and, more importantly, be able to meet the technology demands that are going to be across the world's industries,” he told the FT. Ta.
Krithivasan added that TCS has a pipeline of generative AI projects worth $900 million.
During the company's fourth-quarter earnings call, Kritivasan also said that since the launch of its AI.Cloud business unit, TCS, it has gained further market traction.
“So far this year, we have won more than 200 contracts for artificial intelligence (AI), and the number of contracts going into production is also increasing,” he said.
