- Former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka says AI disruption is real but uneven across sectors
- Generative AI boosts software development and routine work, not complex decision-making
- Sikka sees AI reshaping analytics and enterprise IT, unlocking trillions in economic value
For years, artificial intelligence has been announced with the urgency of a breaking-news alert. But for former Infosys CEO and Managing Director Vishal Sikka, the current wave of generative AI adoption is anything but abrupt. After nearly three decades working across artificial intelligence and enterprise software, Sikka says the idea of “sudden disruption” makes him smile.
In a recent post on X, the founder and CEO of Vianai Systems argued that while the disruption is real, its character matters more than its speed. What distinguishes this moment, he said, is not how fast AI is spreading, but how unevenly it is reshaping work.
The ‘Jagged Frontier' of Generative AI
Borrowing a phrase from AI researcher Melanie Mitchell, Sikka described today's AI landscape as a “jagged frontier.” The biggest gains from generative AI, he noted, are showing up in software development and routine knowledge work—but not uniformly.
“AI empowers some people and transforms some domains far more than others,” Sikka wrote, pointing out that while certain tasks are being dramatically accelerated, complex judgment and contextual decision-making remain difficult to automate. The result is not blanket replacement, but selective amplification.
Sikka believes that with AI tools lowering technical barriers, junior employees can now perform tasks that once required specialists, while deeper judgment continues to rely on human experience.
Decentralising Expertise, Not Replacing Humans
That philosophy, he says, underpins Vianai's product strategy. Rather than routing every analytical question through technical teams and processes, the company focuses on enabling businesses to interact directly with data. According to Sikka, this effectively tackles fragmented reporting, which is one of computing's longest-standing bottlenecks,
Sikka argues that this shift goes well beyond chatbots or coding assistants. Technology that can accurately translate a business user's intent into software logic and execute it on real data, he said, is already reshaping analytics and could ultimately transform enterprise IT itself. The long-term impact, Sikka believes, is economic as much as technological—unlocking productivity gains that could create trillions of dollars in new value across industries.
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