AI Won't Kill IT Services, It Will Make Them More Vital: Anand Mahindra

Tech Mahindra Chairman Anand Mahindra dismissed concerns that artificial intelligence will destroy India's IT services sector. Speaking at the company's annual general meeting (AGM), Mahindra emphasized that the industry's role will "not diminish," but will instead evolve to become more critical. He further stressed that India must transcend being a mere consumer of foreign AI, urging the nation to become a creator, shaper, and trusted deployer of its own intelligence.

Mahindra said India's strength lies in its ability to be nudged by "denial-driven innovation", as he cited the PARAM supercomputer as proof that technological constraints can spur indigenous breakthroughs.

He said the same spirit should drive sovereign AI through domestic capability, trusted collaboration and self-reliance, adding that Tech Mahindra's selection under the India AI Mission is a responsibility that the company takes very seriously.

Mahindra said AI will challenge old models, but it will also create one of the largest opportunities the industry has ever seen, which is to help enterprises and nations convert intelligence into trusted impact.

"At the very outset, let me tackle the elephant in the room - which is the prediction that the rise of Artificial Intelligence will kill IT services in India. Every major technology cycle creates such anxieties," he noted.

Mahindra emphasised his clear position on the matter has been that "the role of IT services will not diminish".

"It will change, of course. And in many ways, it will become more important," he said.

AI is no longer just a productivity tool at the edge of the enterprise, but the front and centre of how businesses design work, serve customers, manage risk and make decisions.

"But imagining what AI can do, that's just the easy part. Making AI work reliably, securely and responsibly at enterprise scale is much harder," he said.

Most enterprises operate with legacy systems, fragmented data, complex regulations and technology debt, and AI can't simply be placed on top of this "complexity", he explained.

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"It has to be integrated, governed and shaped around each enterprise's context. And that is why companies like ours matter: to make AI usable, trusted and valuable inside the enterprise," he said.

He likened AI to a smartphone, saying its true value lies not in the technology itself but in the applications, connectivity and enterprise solutions built around it. Companies like Tech Mahindra, he said, enable businesses to turn AI into a practical tool that delivers real business value.

The real differentiator, he said, will be an enterprise's proprietary data, workflows, domain expertise and business judgment, which he described as its "alpha".

Tech Mahindra's role, he added, is to help clients preserve and leverage that advantage through platforms, solutions and workflows built around AI models.

The company is operating from a position of strength, he said.

Highlighting the company's performance, Mahindra said Tech Mahindra has delivered margin expansion for ten consecutive quarters despite a volatile business environment, while quarterly deal wins have exceeded USD 1 billion in successive quarters.

He said the company's industry-leading 'Net Promoter Score' reflected the trust clients place in Tech Mahindra, adding that such trust would become even more critical as enterprises adopt AI.

"That trust will matter even more in the AI era. Clients will need partners who understand that AI transformation is not a technology project alone. It is a business, talent and operating model transformation," he said.

According to him, the enterprise of tomorrow will not be all-human or all-AI. They will be built on human judgment amplified by AI capability.

"To bring this vision to life, your company has embarked on Project Helix. Through this programme, Vector Squads will interweave human expertise with AI agents, like two strands of DNA, combining domain knowledge, engineering depth, governance and responsible AI practices around each client's context," Mahindra said.

Frontier AI is not just a commercial technology, but increasingly a strategic capability, shaped by trust, regulation, national interest and sovereignty, he said.

With Inputs From PTI.

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