The Indian IT services revenue is set to reach $315 billion in FY26, propelled by growth in the hardware and engineering and research and development (ER&D) segments.
This represents a growth of 6.1 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y).
Despite the headwinds, the FY26 revenue target is better than FY25, when the industry clocked 5.9 per cent growth.
The strategic review indicates that export forecast will rise 5.6 per cent Y-o-Y, reaching $246 billion in FY26 (E) from $233 billion in FY25.
Though a net hirer, the industry's headcount growth is softening, reflecting the non-linearity component. The industry will have a total net addition of 135,000 this financial year, a modest rise of 2.3 per cent in FY26. This is up from 133,000 people added in FY25.
Rajesh Nambiar, president, Nasscom, agreed that the overall hiring from campuses has come down, as there is a clear diversion of revenue growth and headcount addition.
For the first time, Nasscom also shared that AI revenue estimate for FY26 would be $10-12 billion.
“AI contributed very meaningfully to the top line of many companies. Many providers have moved to an inorganic strategy in AI. About 70 per cent of the top 25 providers acquired AI-native firms during last year. Almost 85 per cent of the top providers have some form of agentic platform,” said Nambiar.
Global capability centres (GCCs) and ER&D continued to be the growth engines with significant headroom ahead.
Niche engines are achieving critical mass with cybersecurity, data analytics, Cloud, and GCC-as-a-service becoming increasingly embedded across multiple segments.
The review added that export share stayed steady with Asia Pacific (APAC) and Middle East leading growth while the domestic market continued to expand steadily. The vertical mix evolved with gradual gains in emerging sectors such as healthcare, and travel and transportation, largely driven by GCCs.
Sindhu Gangadharan, chairperson, Nasscom, said, “AI is accelerating productivity and changing the nature of work, but it is also expanding the opportunity frontier. As AI gets embedded across functions, we will see roles redesigned around outcomes, deeper specialisation, and significantly higher AI fluency. The industry’s focus is on building ‘Human + AI’ teams, investing in continuous skilling, and converting efficiency gains into growth. This would create new jobs and new career pathways even as delivery becomes more agile and resilient.”
Coming to future spent on tech, the Nasscom Global End User CXO Survey highlighted a clear increase in AI intensity. Around 86 per cent of CXOs expect business demand to remain stable or increase in 2026 (including 56 per cent who anticipate growth over 2025).
And, 90 per cent indicate increasing AI allocation within digital budgets in 2026, signalling that AI is moving from discretionary experimentation to scaled, budget-backed deployments aligned to measurable outcomes.
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