TCS Vs HCLTech Vs Accenture: AI Revenues Finally Move From Narrative To Numbers

Tech giants are fast embracing artificial intelligence not just in their daily operations and foundational models, but also as major trigger for their balance sheets. From being an abstract narrative for Indian IT firms, AI revenue is now being measured as a standalone, monetisable category

Accenture’s latest Q1FY26 results have reinforced steady execution, but the real investor takeaway was not headline revenue or margins, it was the scale and clarity emerging around AI monetisation across global and Indian IT services companies.

Accenture reported Advanced AI revenue of $1.1 billion in Q1FY26, up 120% year-on-year, with Advanced AI bookings at $2.2 billion, doubling YoY. AI now contributes 5.8% of Accenture’s quarterly revenue, marking one of the clearest signs yet that AI-led programmes are transitioning from pilots to scaled deployments

Sequentially, AI bookings rose from $1.8 billion in Q4, indicating sustained enterprise demand. Management highlighted that AI is increasingly embedded across large transformation deals rather than being sold as standalone projects, improving revenue visibility and deal stickiness.

Accenture’s AI disclosures provide a crucial benchmark for Indian IT companies, which have historically lagged global peers in explicitly quantifying AI revenue.

The key takeaway is not just scale, but the fact that AI revenue is now being measured as a standalone, monetisable category rather than bundled within broader digital or analytics services.

This shift has direct implications for Indian IT firms, many of which have similar enterprise client profiles, but are at an early stage of the AI monetisation curve.

TCS has taken a significant step forward by reporting annualised AI revenue of $1.5 billion, equivalent to ~5% of its topline. Importantly, this is the first time TCS has formally quantified AI revenue, lending greater transparency to its GenAI strategy.

AI revenue is growing 16.2% quarter-on-quarter and 38.2% year-on-year, supported by deep client penetration. TCS has completed over 5,000 AI projects since CY23 and is currently engaged in AI programmes with 54 of its top 64 clients, suggesting AI adoption is broad-based rather than concentrated.

Management views GenAI as a structural upgrade to its services stack, enabling movement up the value chain rather than incremental pricing on existing work.

HCLTech reported over $100 million in Advanced AI revenue for the quarter, translating to 2.8–3% of total revenue. Though modest in absolute terms, it was the first ever top tier IT company to report AI revenue. HCLTech’s disclosure stood out for its clarity around what constitutes AI revenue.

Advanced AI includes Agentic AI, AI Factory, Physical AI, AI engineering and IP-led platforms, while explicitly excluding classical data and analytics services or routine delivery work enhanced by AI.

This narrower definition makes HCLTech’s AI revenue more comparable to platform and IP monetisation than labour-based services.

Management has articulated a clear shift from “pure labour” to people-plus-IP revenue, with AI Force v2.0, positioned as a unified agentic AI and orchestration platform, expected to go live in January 2026.

Across Accenture, TCS and HCLTech, AI revenue is no longer an abstract narrative. With AI contributing ~5–6% of revenue at Accenture and TCS, and ~3% at HCLTech, the industry is entering a phase where AI monetisation can be tracked, compared and valued.

For investors, the key question now shifts from “who is building AI capabilities” to “who can scale AI revenue without compressing margins”, a debate that is only just beginning.