Sonata Software to get 20% of revenue from AI-led services in 2-3 yrs: CFO

Bengaluru-based Sonata Software aims to get about 20 per cent of its revenue from artificial intelligence (AI)-led services in the next 2-3 years, a top executive said.

“AI is part of all deal proposals now… we have a $55 million-pipeline of AI deals at present. We have started to get AI-led projects now and this will scale up in the coming days,” Jagannathan Chakravarthi, CFO, Sonata Software, told Business Standard.

“But it will take 5-6 quarters for AI to evolve and for us to get a reasonable view on the size and implication of the deals.”

Without disclosing the number of employees involved, Chakravarthi said Sonata has a dedicated team of people working on AI and about 2,000 people have been already trained on various aspects of AI and generative AI (GenAI). It had a total of over 6,000 employees as of the fourth quarter.

Last year, Sonata Software launched Harmoni.AI, a “responsible-first” AI offering with a range of industry solutions, service delivery platforms, and accelerators using GenAI.

It is doing pilots with multiple customers, including Fortune 500 clients, across sectors like Healthcare and Life Sciences, Consumer Products & Retail, Telecom, Media & Technology, and Banking and Financial Services.

Also, Sonata’s Harmoni.AI Academy is training engineers on the “Responsible-First by Design” approach, and around 20 per cent of its engineers are involved in AI initiatives to enable clients to leverage the potential of GenAI in a trusted, secure, and governed framework.   

To fuel its growth plans, Sonata will also be looking at acquisitions provided it fits the company’s strategy.

“We continue to explore acquisitions but we don’t want to do it unless it’s the right fit in terms of both technology and strategy. We may not do an acquisition immediately but may look at one in the last quarter of this fiscal…we would focus on the latest technologies like cloud, data, and AI and companies with high growth potential,” Chakravarthi said.

Sonata Software’s International IT Services business reported a net profit of Rs 70.3 crore, down 6 per cent year-on-year (Y-0-Y) on account of the acquisition of Quant Systems. Sonata acquired Texas-based software company Quant Systems last year for a total consideration of $95 million.

“Quant contributes about 20-25 per cent of our IT services revenue now and while they have been growing very well in past quarters, the January-March quarter is soft for them, so there is a seasonal impact,” Chakravarthi said.

The International IT Services revenue for the fourth quarter grew 27 per cent Y-o-Y to Rs 679 crore. On a sequential basis, revenue declined 3 per cent due to delays in decision-making of some large deals amid the overall macro-economic uncertainties.