The Obsession of TCS with Generative Artificial Intelligence

TCS has seen multiple applications of generative artificial intelligence in molecular discovery and automotive and gas turbine engineering design space exploration.

Milind Lakkad, Chief Human Resources Officer at TCS, said in a recent earnings conference call, "Today, we have over 100,000 employees ready to use generative artificial intelligence, and we are now deepening their expertise in this exciting new technology."

TCS, an IT giant, has been catching up with generative artificial intelligence in recent months and is now fully committed to its development. In May of this year, the company announced that it is developing a tool similar to ChatGPT for generating code using its own algorithms. The tool will be integrated into the low-code software development platform, MasterCraft.

The recent second-quarter report emphasized the company's commitment to further supporting generative artificial intelligence with the launch of AI.Cloud. This unit brings together TCS's three large-scale dedicated cloud units, data science, and artificial intelligence/machine learning experts. TCS mentioned that they are a large-scale partner for several new technology launches, including generative artificial intelligence.

Strengthening partnerships and customer relationships

CEO K Krithivasan mentioned, "Our rich pipeline of opportunities, along with integrated generative artificial intelligence solutions, has played a key role in winning significant contracts." He further emphasized that generative artificial intelligence remains a core topic in discussions with IT and business leaders across various markets, and they actively engage in co-innovation and explore new concepts and innovative approaches.

This IT giant has been collaborating with cloud computing service providers such as Google and Microsoft to offer generative artificial intelligence services to its clients. Recently, TCS decided to strengthen its partnership with Microsoft to develop AI-based software services. The collaboration with Azure OpenAI, a collaboration between Microsoft and OpenAI, involves the use of cloud-based AI tool GitHub Copilot.

In May of this year, TCS also announced a partnership with Google to provide cloud-based generative artificial intelligence services to its customers using Google's Vertex AI for model deployment.

In addition, TCS Interactive, which provides digital interactive services, has achieved strong growth in customer investments in experience-led transformation projects and marketing effectiveness, with many clients experimenting with generative artificial intelligence for customer experience. This indicates that TCS is actively leveraging generative artificial intelligence to enhance customer experience and marketing strategies, reflecting the practical application of this technology.

The financial report also mentioned TCS's collaboration with AEMO, a major electricity distributor in the Asia-Pacific region, to deploy a secure enterprise-level generative artificial intelligence platform on Azure to address health and safety issues related to electrical equipment. This demonstrates the practical application of generative artificial intelligence in addressing security and operational issues in specific industries.

Krithivasan stated that they have won six large-scale operational transformation deals, with TCS Cognix at the core. TCS Cognix enables business outcomes and decision-making through dashboards and predictive analytics by embedding artificial intelligence, machine learning, and increasingly generative artificial intelligence.

The best part is that Krithivasan also stated that TCS is now seeing increasing complexity and sophistication in use cases for generative artificial intelligence, including providing enhanced solutions for financial advisors and wealth management strategies, automated underwriting for insurance policies, generative artificial intelligence-based molecular discovery, and exploration of engineering design space for automotive and gas turbines.

Training and recruiting employees

In addition to investing in generative artificial intelligence, TCS is one of the few IT leaders prepared to hire more employees rather than lay off. The company announced plans to hire approximately 35,000 to 40,000 new employees by 2024, as usual.

NG Subramaniam, Chief Operating Officer of TCS, said, "We typically hire 35,000 to 40,000 people, and these plans remain unchanged." Additionally, the company aims to train new employees and reduce the number of idle resources. TCS is committed to improving employee utilization to address industry slowdown. "In the past 12 months, all these people have undergone training, onboarding, and skill enhancement. They can serve as an effective resource pool for various projects," added Subramaniam.

In July, TCS announced plans to significantly expand its Azure OpenAI expertise and intends to train and certify 25,000 employees with Azure OpenAI certification to help accelerate adoption of the technology by clients.

TCS has also launched an AI playground, where employees can safely access various generative artificial intelligence platforms and curated startup technologies provided by partner COIN (Co-Innovation Network). They can experiment with large-scale language models in the playground and explore new ideas to build solutions for real business problems without exposing data to the network.

Krithivasan stated, "Over time, we plan to host hackathons in the playground to challenge TCS's best and brightest minds to identify the most talented engineers within the organization and further enhance our talent pool." He mentioned that their various product and platform teams are actively leveraging generative artificial intelligence to create differentiation capabilities in their respective products.