FACING GEN AI

Can Indian IT Companies Evolve to Turn a Global Monster into an Ally?

- Vinita Bhatia

 

Grim faces and stoic silence—that is what the boardroom of a Bengaluru-headquartered IT firm held on a balmy morning in late February 2023. The deepest frown lines were etched on the CEO’s forehead as everyone’s eyes fixated on the massive screen.

It showed a report by JP Morgan that predicted that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, could slow down market revenue growth of Indian IT companies, which dominate the country’s $245 billion tech market. It also forecasted that it could deflate their pricing in the short term and consulting companies, like Accenture and Deloitte, could snatch market share from these firms.

With alarm bells ringing loudly in the background, the thought uppermost in every individual’s mind in the boardroom was, “Can GenAI truly disrupt India’s IT sector, or is this just another doomsday prediction that will never come to pass just like Y2K?”

“Does this mean that these consulting firms will steal our lunch? Especially when we are dealing with slowing customer spending in our key markets, like the US and the UK that is compounded by a recessionary trend and ongoing Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas war?” thundered the CEO. “Do we have a game plan to tackle this additional challenge? How are we making our offerings more competitive and our staff more competent to deal with this changed reality?” asked the CEO.

These questions kept emerging during the brainstorming session and are being constantly asked across the Indian IT sector. However, in subsequent months, it seems, the Indian IT sector has deciphered the GenAI challenge to a large extent and is devising ways to turn it into an advantage.