Client meetings 'start and stop with ChatGPT' says India's largest IT company

• ChatGPT and AI in general will play a significant role in shaping the way IT companies function, going forward.
  
• TCS said that it is already seeing ChatGPT dominate its conversations with clients.
  
• TCS’ COO NG Subramaniam said his interactions with clients “start and stop with ChatGPT”.
  

ChatGPT and artificial intelligence in general, will play a significant role in shaping the way IT companies function going forward. India’s largest IT company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) says that ChatGPT is dominating its conversations with clients.

“In my interactions with clients over the last quarter, the conversation starts and stops with ChatGPT. Machine learning is a very important area of focus for people,” said N Ganapathy Subramaniam, chief operating officer and executive director, TCS in the company’s post-earnings analyst call.

Although AI and ML are not new concepts, the limelight on ChatGPT and its rapid advancements has brought the focus back on them. From being creepy to being a very efficient research assistant, ChatGPT has shown immense potential for leverage. In fact, the company behind it, OpenAI has rolled out plugin support for ChatGPT 4, allowing developers to build anything from a math tutor to a vacation planner.

This has understandably sparked a lot of curiosity. According to estimates, ChatGPT has 100 million active users, setting the record for the fastest user base growth for a consumer service. This interest is reflected in TCS’ clients as well.

“Everybody talks about ChatGPT and what it's going to do. It’s very clear that innovation is surpassing productivity,” Subramaniam added.

TCS is planning a ‘centre of excellence’ around ChatGPT

In order to keep abreast with the developments in AI and ML, TCS said it will focus on how to leverage these technologies to improve service delivery to its clients.

“ChatGPT kind of a technology is like any other tool, any other technology. As it matures, I think we will be ready for it,” Subramaniam said.

Going forward, TCS has some plans for ChatGPT. “We will have a centre of excellence around it, we will have core competencies built around it,” Subramaniam added during the post-earnings call.

For now, TCS plans to study the ins and outs, pros and cons of ChatGPT and other AI technologies, and the ways in which it can implement it in its workflows.

Potential to fundamentally change TCS’ business

Speaking of the impact of AI and ML technologies on the company’s business, Subramaniam said that it could fundamentally change the way TCS operates.

“Many quarters ago, I mentioned that AI/ML has the potential to fundamentally change the way that we deliver software to our clients,” he said.

ChatGPT agrees with Subramaniam, and had this to say when we posed the same question: “ChatGPT and AI have the potential to transform the way IT companies work, making them more efficient, productive, and customer-centric.”

There is also a growing fear that ChatGPT and other AI technologies could take jobs away. While it is accepted that repetitive tasks have the highest potential of being automated, TCS’ chief HR officer Milind Lakkad said, “Jobs will not reduce, they will change. We’ll have to add on skills to what they learn and based on that new value will be created for the customer.”

It won’t be just TCS or IT companies which will see a fundamental change in how it operates, the people it employs will also very likely undergo a similar change in their functioning.

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