Andreessen rings alarm bell on AI challenge to IT

Will artificial intelligence (AI) impact jobs and the powerhouse that is the Indian IT services industry?

- Jas Bardia

BENGALURU: The debate, which has been around for a while, picked up steam with the advent of generative AI tool ChatGPT in November 2022.

The misgivings have escalated now, with the world's largest venture capital (VC) firm joining the debate. In a blog post on February 13, California-headquartered Andreessen Horowitz argued that the mundane and repetitive work of the information technology (IT) services industry could be automated by using AI tools, and that AI startups will subsume work done by large IT services companies.

"We think there are many massive companies to be created that subsume the work that BPOs do," said Kimberly Tan, an investing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, in a blog post on 13 February. BPOs refer to business process outsourcing firms.

Tan added that while BPOs do important work, the experience of working with them is not seamless for clients.