AI is nothing new, TCS has been working on it since 1990, says COO N Ganapathy Subramaniam

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services exporter, has been working on Artificial Intelligence (AI) since 1990, the company’s Chief Operating Officer N. Ganapathy Subramaniam told Business Today.

Subramaniam said, “Artificial Intelligence is nothing new. I think we have been at it since 1990 and it's just that it's fast maturing and it has come to a stage where everyone will use it, right? You will use it, I will use it, my children will use it.”

The COO also explained that currently AI has reached a stage where it has surpassed the abilities of IT workers.

“As I see it, I think the innovation around it is surpassing productivity that we typically get from our own employees due to the learning curve and all the other aspects,” Subramaniam noted.

He further stated that the IT major has been applying AI in their products as well. He added that 95 per cent of code of TCS BaNCS is generated by prompts.

“For example, our own product, TCS BaNCS, 95 per cent of the code of TCS BaNCS is completely generated based on a very high level of prompt that we do in terms of the higher level specifications that we write. So it's nothing new in terms of the generative capability that is out there,” he said.

But does this mean engineering jobs are at risk? Subramaniam thinks they are safe, at least for the time being. He explained that in the near-term productivity across the sector will shoot up with AI integrated in the workplace.

“For now, yeah, I think jobs are going to be safe. I think every new technology has only augmented the jobs the way that people do. The quality of work that we all do will get better and better. And I think the demand for such technologies will only keep going up. So I would encourage each one of the people out there to learn this technology and be ready,” the COO said.

During the Q4 FY 2022-23 earnings call on Wednesday, Subramaniam also mentioned how TCS clients are keen on AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

He said, “In my interactions with all these clients over the last quarter, the conversation starts and stops with ChatGPT.”

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