The upskilling imperative: TCS' plan on AI agents must spur a new approach

The writing is on the wall, and now a top information technology (IT) leader of the country publicly acknowledged it this week. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Chairman N Chandrasekaran, at the firm’s 31st annual general meeting, relayed a message that businesses cannot ignore. Mr Chandrasekaran, who’s also Tata Sons chairman, made a projection that could drastically change the trajectory of the IT industry. Over the next three years, TCS will have as many artificial intelligence (AI) agents as human employees and that the pace of hiring will slow, he informed shareholders. That would imply a large-scale disruption, not just at TCS, which has around half a million employees, but across the IT landscape. It’s a matter of time before the phenomenon spreads to other job-intensive sectors. For a country grappling with insufficient employment creation, this AI reality makes the concern about new and existing jobs that much more serious. 

Coping with this magnitude of disruption, where AI agents will take up a variety of IT roles, requires a timely strategy on upskilling new hires as well as existing employees. It is critical to appreciate the implications of an AI-centric future rather than just wish it away. As the TCS chairman highlighted, the slowdown in hiring does not mean there are no opportunities. “Once the transition happens, the AI world will produce so much more opportunities, there will be new talent that will be required,” he averred.  

Tapping those new opportunities will decide the future of India’s tech industry, which has been the world’s IT backroom for long. Signs of a shakeup in hiring are already being witnessed. IT industry estimates suggest a net addition of 135,000 employees this financial year, reflecting a meagre 2.3 per cent rise over FY26. Therefore, without losing time, organisations, industry bodies, academic institutions and governments (central and state) must focus on the immediacy of the AI mission to ensure a robust future for the IT sector, which has been at the forefront of the India growth story for decades. 

IT majors, including TCS, recently experienced erosion in stock-market valuation mainly due to investor anxiety over AI threats as well as geopolitical factors. Against that backdrop, the industry has to redraw its growth path carefully, while keeping AI as an integral part of the journey.   

TCS, which is the largest software firm in the country and which laid off 2 per cent of its staff last year while on road to be an AI-first company, is looking at AI as the biggest growth opportunity in its history, as the company’s chairman stated. But, in that process, employees of IT companies and tens of thousands of engineering students waiting to join the workforce should not get short shrift. For that, industry captains, academia and the political leadership must have a plan that goes beyond optics. 

According to a recent Boston Consulting Group (BSG) report, over the next two to three years, 50-55 per cent of the jobs in the United States will be reshaped by AI. While many employees will retain the same or a similar role, they may face “radically new expectations for how they work and what they produce”. The report added that company leaders would require a vision of how the transformation was managed, including a scaled, strategic approach to upskilling and reskilling their workforce, as well as restructuring career pathways. That seems to be a good starting point.