India's Wipro anticipates rapid AI adoption will boost, not diminish, demand for software service providers, according to CTO Hari Shetty. This counters widespread concerns that AI threatens the industry's traditional outsourcing model.
Shetty views AI as a "large opportunity," expecting it to create more jobs than it displaces. He distinguishes between current "task automation" and the future "autonomous enterprise," which will necessitate deep IT service partnerships for client transformation.
Comparing AI's potential to electricity or the internet, Shetty stated that current discussions focus too narrowly on automation, overlooking a broader structural shift. He cited World Economic Forum estimates suggesting AI could create 170 million jobs globally while disrupting 92 million. The Indian IT sector, he predicts, will see high demand for skills in model training, data curation, and responsible AI.
Shetty emphasized that "the primary differentiation here is people who know AI and people who do not know AI." He believes AI, much like cloud computing, will expand the responsibilities of service providers.
Wipro is actively seeking "AI literate" engineers, a move that challenges predictions of a hollowed-out industry staffing pyramid. Shetty stressed the need for partners with deep domain process understanding to guide clients towards "autonomous enterprises," a transformation expected to shape technology spending for the next decade.