TCS has offered a glimpse into how it sees the future of work, and AI is expected to play a much bigger role than ever before. Speaking at the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), Chairman N Chandrasekaran said TCS is moving rapidly towards an AI-driven operating model and will have as many AI agents as human employees within the next three years. The comments come at a time when questions around AI’s impact on jobs continue to grow across the technology industry. Chandrasekaran acknowledged that the company’s hiring pattern is likely to change as AI becomes more deeply integrated into business operations, although he also pointed out that new opportunities will emerge for people with the right skills. Here are five key takeaways from what TCS said about its AI plans and future growth strategy.
1. TCS expects AI agents to match its human workforce
According to Chandrasekaran, AI is no longer a future concept for TCS but an ongoing transformation. He revealed that the company’s annualised AI revenue stood at $2.4 billion in the last quarter of FY26 and has been growing at a compound quarterly growth rate of 22.4 percent.
Sharing his outlook for the next few years, he said, “At TCS, the transformation is already well underway. In the last quarter of fiscal 2026, TCS had an annualised AI revenues of $2.4 billion, which is growing at a CQGR of 22.4 per cent. I predict that over the next 3 years, TCS will have as many AI agent as human employees.”
2. Hiring will continue, but not at previous levels
Several shareholders raised concerns about recruitment plans, especially after reports of workforce reductions. Responding to those questions, Chandrasekaran made it clear that TCS is unlikely to recruit employees in the same volumes as it did in the past. He said, “The company has half a million employees. The day is not far when the company will have half a million AI agents. Will it definitely lead to decrease in hiring? Absolutely. The company will not be hiring the kind of numbers it used to hire.”
While overall hiring may slow, he noted that the company will still require fresh talent as its business evolves around AI technologies.
3. AI skills will become essential for future jobs
Even as automation expands, TCS believes people will remain an important part of the workforce. However, employees will need to adapt to changing demands. Chandrasekaran stressed that individuals must develop strong AI capabilities to remain fully employable in the coming years. The comments come after TCS reduced its workforce by nearly 26,000 employees during FY26, significantly higher than its earlier estimate of around 1,200 job cuts.
The company is basically trying to say that the future opportunities will increasingly favour workers who can work alongside AI systems rather than those relying only on traditional technology skills.
4. TCS sees major business opportunities beyond automation
Chandrasekaran argued that investors may be misunderstanding the relationship between AI and IT services, which he believes explains the gap between the performance of technology stocks and the operating performance of companies.
Looking ahead, he identified several areas where TCS expects strong demand. One of the biggest opportunities, according to him, will be helping businesses govern and manage AI systems. He also pointed to modernising core enterprise technology platforms, redesigning business processes using AI, sovereign AI initiatives, and physical AI as important growth areas for the company. As more enterprises deploy agentic AI systems, TCS expects its role to expand beyond implementation into oversight and management of these technologies.
5. Future growth may depend less on employee count
For decades, the IT services industry has largely grown by adding more employees and billing clients based on manpower. TCS now believes that model could gradually change. Chandrasekaran said the company is increasingly looking at an asset-led approach rather than relying solely on workforce expansion to drive revenue growth. He also reiterated TCS’ ambition of returning to double-digit annual growth.
“Our focus is to get to double-digit growth on a year-on-year basis whether it happens in FY27 or FY28. If you are doing $2.3 billion AI revenue in a quarter on an annualised basis, we should look for proof points for it go to double and triple in coming quarters and automatically push annual growth rates up,” he said.
– Ends
Source link
[ad_3]
