Doing important transformation with AI: Genpact's Chief Digital Strategist

Strap: 'We have trained over 58,000 people in data analytics and artificial intelligence so far,' says Sanjay Srivastava, Chief Digital Strategist, Genpact

Global professional services firm Genpact, which reported total revenue of $1.11 billion in Q3FY24, has generated $510 million from its Data-Tech-AI services segment. Sanjay Srivastava, Chief Digital Strategist, Genpact in an interview with Sourabh Lele says the company has trained over 58,000 people in data analytics and artificial intelligence so far.  Here are some edited excerpts from the interview:

What is the impact of the macroeconomic situation on the priorities of your clients?

First of all, the macroeconomic conditions have changed a lot. You can't argue against it. And there is tremendous pressure now on margins, costs, and therefore IT budgets. I am seeing that across all our clients. That said, no one is willing to step away from differentiation and disintermediation. Some of the budgets for IT services are being pulled out to fund the growth budgets. I think that will continue. I don't think this is for a few months, I think for the rest of the year this will continue. In a nutshell, according to me, digital transformation will see growth rates because all the chief information officers (CIOs) I talked to want to grow their digital transformation efforts, but traditional IT will be pressurized.

What percentage of the work done by your company is automated using Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) tools?

There are two areas: In the first area, we take on the work from a client, and we do the work for them. In doing the work, we apply automation, analytics and AI which makes our Data-Tech-AI segment. The best proxy I can give you is we have now trained over 58,000 of our people in data analytics and AI. For all of the work we do in the business domains, we now use AI to be able to do as much of it as possible. So I would say we are doing a significant transformation.

The other half of what we do is we go to a client, we re-engineer their work. Then they use it, manage it, and run it. We don't measure what proportion they have automated because it's their world. It wouldn't be fair to comment on that.

There is a lot of talk about generative AI after the launch of ChatGPT. Is it really helping for enterprise use cases?

I think it has many uses. On the creative side, where you can get a little further away from the factuality, we are starting to see some early use cases. On the other end, for enterprise use cases, the best one I am seeing is generative AI in the context of software programming. If you look at what's happening with GitHub co-pilot, literally, the program is getting written itself. I do think ChatGPT is going to make a difference.

How are these developments with generative AI reflecting the demand from your clients?

I think it will drive adoption because every person now understands that AI is strong and powerful enough. So at home, if you find it to be very powerful, you are going to show up at work and say, what are we doing about it? And those conversations are happening in the boardroom. The CIOs have to be in a very responsive mode. That's one extreme and on the other extreme, it is real productivity. There is no question in mind if it helps software product engineering.

So, for automation and software programming, it is fantastic. Peers of mine are reducing their workload by 40-50 per cent. Because the software is writing itself, the challenge is, you have to make sure that the IP is correctly attributed and that the code is of high quality, among others. But the amount of work that is involved and the time it takes are significantly reduced.

Are you looking for new partners in this area?

One of the reasons I am here is to meet new smaller companies. I am trying to meet companies that are doing artificial intelligence, data engineering, and what I call intelligent applications. Currently, the applications are changing with more AI built in and becoming more intelligent. I think the end case of the application world is that developers should not be writing applications, business users should be writing applications, and generative AI will get us there. We are keen to find companies that can help us on that journey. We should talk in a few weeks when I have a better update regarding this.