AI will transform, not diminish, India's IT services industry: Anand Mahindra
New Delhi, July 18
Tech Mahindra Chairman Anand Mahindra has dismissed concerns that artificial intelligence will undermine India's IT services industry, asserting that the sector's role will evolve and become even more significant as enterprises increasingly adopt AI at scale.
Addressing shareholders at the company's annual general meeting (AGM), Mahindra said every major technological shift has sparked fears about job losses and disruption, but AI should instead be viewed as a catalyst for the next phase of growth for the industry.
"At the very outset, let me tackle the elephant in the room -- which is the prediction that the rise of Artificial Intelligence will kill IT services in India. Every major technology cycle creates such anxieties," he said.
Mahindra maintained that while AI will reshape the industry, it will not reduce the importance of IT services.
"Instead, the industry's role will become more critical as businesses require trusted partners to deploy AI securely and effectively," Mahindra noted.
He noted that AI has moved beyond being a productivity tool on the periphery of organisations and is now central to how enterprises design work, serve customers, manage risk and make decisions. However, implementing AI at enterprise scale remains far more challenging than simply envisioning its capabilities.
According to Mahindra, most enterprises continue to operate with legacy systems, fragmented data, complex regulations and accumulated technology debt, making AI deployment a sophisticated integration exercise rather than a plug-and-play solution.
He said this is where companies like Tech Mahindra play a crucial role by helping organisations integrate, govern and customise AI in a secure and responsible manner. Comparing AI to a smartphone, Mahindra said the real value lies not in the underlying technology itself but in the applications, connectivity and enterprise solutions built around it.
He further said an enterprise's true competitive advantage, or "alpha", will increasingly come from its proprietary data, business workflows, domain expertise and institutional knowledge. Tech Mahindra's role, he added, is to help clients preserve and enhance that advantage through AI-powered platforms, workflows and solutions.
— IANS
Reader Comments
While I appreciate the optimism, I think we need to be more cautious. Entry-level coding jobs that many Indian graduates rely on will definitely be automated. The "trusted partner" role Mr. Mahindra describes requires deep domain knowledge that mid-career professionals have, but what about fresh graduates? We need massive government-private partnerships for reskilling programs, not just corporate assurances. Otherwise, we risk creating a two-tier IT workforce.
Having worked with Indian IT firms for 15 years, I agree with Anand Mahindra. The real value Indian companies bring is understanding complex client environments - legacy systems, compliance, cultural nuances. AI can't replace that contextual knowledge. But Indian firms must invest more in R&D and IP creation rather than just being service providers. That's where true competitive advantage lies.
Exactly! Mahindra sahab ka point is spot on. When mobile phones came, everyone thought it would destroy India's call center industry. Instead, we now have BPOs handling complex processes, not just voice calls. Similarly, AI will upgrade the IT sector from coding to consulting. But I'm concerned about the speed - will our education system keep up? We need to teach AI literacy from school level itself. Abhi toh syllabus update bhi nahi hota hai! 😅
As a fresher at a mid-sized IT company, this article gives me some hope but also makes me nervous. Mr. Mahindra talks about "proprietary data, business workflows, and domain expertise" - but how do we get that experience? Companies need to invest more in training programs for newcomers. I don't want to be just an AI prompt writer. We want to be part of building those complex AI systems he describes! 🤞
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