Indian IT Ends FY24 with Mixed ‘GenAI’ Emotions

Can't read or see images? View this email in a browser

 THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER OF AIM.  Sunday, Apr 21, 2024 | Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here  By Amit Raja Naik   Major Indian IT companies, including the likes ofTCS, Infosys, Wipro, LTIMindtree, and HCLTech, witnessed mixed outcomes for the fourth quarter of FY24. While these companies reported a record number of deal wins, this did not translate into proportional revenue growth.  However, when it came to quantifying generative AI deals, nothing much has changed from previous quarters. Sadly, the majority of Indian IT companies were quite rigid about not revealing revenue numbers from generative AI, as the amounts were either minuscule or there was barely anything to report.   But there were a few exceptions. TCS, for the first time, revealed that its AI and generative AI pipeline recorded $900 million. HCLTech also reported that more than half of the 15+ deals won in the latest quarter were related to generative AI.   Infosys seems happy with its generative AI work. “We are working on projects across software engineering process, optimisation, customer support, advisory services, alongside sales and marketing,” said Infosys chief Salil Parekh.   Further, he said that the company is working with market-leading open access and closed large language models. “We’ve generated over 3 million lines of code using one of the generative AI large language models in the public domain,” said Parekh, saying how it has been implementing generative AI solutions ethically and responsibly.   LTIMindtree stressed on its generative AI partnerships with Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, Snowflake, and Nvidia, and highlighted initiatives such as a joint venture withAramco Digital, co-investments, and establishing a GenAI and digital hub in Athens. The company said that it saw a 70% improvement in issue resolution and service experience through the deployment of its Canvas AIOpssolution.  In contrast, its rival, Accenture, recorded a cumulative GenAI revenue of $1.1 billion during the first two quarters. Capgeminiclaimed to be working on 300+ generative AI projects. Cognizant mentioned having 250 early engagements using their generative AI services and solutions, with 350+ opportunities in its pipeline.  Here’s a glimpse of the latest ‘GenAI’ quarterly report.   In comparison to the previous quarters, this time as well, AIM noted a decline in the total headcount for many IT firms, along with signs of disparity in hiring freshers.  In the latest quarter of FY24 Q4, the Indian IT sector saw a net reduction of 14,183 employees across TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and LTIMindtree, while HCLTech was an exception with an increase of 2,725 employees.  On the generative AI training side, TCS boasted the highest number of employees trained in generative AI (350,000), followed by Infosys (250,000) and Wipro (225,000), while HCLTech and LTIMindtree barely mentioned anything abouttraining its employees in generative AIin the latest quarter.   The outcome of such training, however, remains vague, prompting questions about its depth and practical applicability in effectively addressing real-world AI challenges.  Wipro’s new chief, Srinivas Pallia, who never misses a chance to talk about his love for hiking, said that the company’s 225,000 employees have been trained in AI 101 (basic level of AI). The company is also considering advanced courses for individuals, depending on the types of PoCs and projects.   “Continuing this deployment remains a high priority for the company. It's about preparing our workforce for the future, and that will continue to be a major focus area,” he added, saying that he is very optimistic in the short term and is taking it step by step and evolving with the technology. “You never know how GenAI would turn in the next three to four months.”  Top Stories of the Week >>   Smartphones Will Soon be Dead  Despite our reliance on smartphones for WhatsApp, Instagram, and booking cabs on Uber or Ola, or even ordering meals from platforms like Zomato or Swiggy, recent developments suggest a shifting landscape. Case in point: Apple’s acquisition of Paris-based Datakalab, signalling a push towards bolstering on-device AI capabilities for the future iPhone 16. Find out more here.   Ready or Not, AI Agents Are Coming Recently, Bland AI put up a cool billboard advertising promoting its AI agent that can handle all sorts of phone calls for businesses in any voice, and it’s creating a buzz. This and others likeDevinand Devikaare just a glimpse of what’s to come. Read the full story here.  People & Tech >>   MKBHD Gets Gaslighted by Rabbit R1 After ripping Humane Ai Pin apart, MKBHD (Marques Brownlee) now gets gaslighted by Rabbit R1. “My favorite new AI feature: gaslighting,” he quipped.   MKBHD’s recent engagement withRabbit R1 says a lot about how users interact with AI systems. It goes beyond mere product or gadget reviews, bringing us to question whether AI has emotions and can even control users to the extent of gaslighting them. Read to find out more.   Zerodha CTO Says He Stopped Googling Technical Stuff Over the Past Year In a rather casual but strong revelation, Kailash Nadh, CTO of India’s largest broking company, Zerodha, told AIM that he has stopped Googling for technical topics in the past year or so. “I’ve stopped Googling technical stuff over the past year. I interact with a chatbot and save minutes to hours every single day,” he said. Check out the full interview here.  This 18-Year-Old Programmer is Creating an Open Source Alternative to Redis Dhravya Shah was barely 16 when he started programming and game development. At 18, he is working towards buildingRadish, an open-source alternative to Redis. Check out his journey here.   AI Explained >>   Hindi Main Diffusion Models   In our latest episode of Analytics India Guru, AIM introduces the concept and workings of diffusion models, which generate highly realistic images, videos, and audio.  Data & AI Events >>   Data Engineering Summit 2024   Join India’s biggest data engineering summit, DES 2024, happening in Namma Bengaluru on May 30-31, 2024. Register now!    AI Nuggets >>  State Bank of Indiapartnered with HCLSoftware to use the HCL Unica platform for a digital transformation to enhance customer engagement. African tech companies use Zoho Enterprise over Google Workspacedue to its cost-effectiveness and acceptance of local currencies. LinkedIn chief Reid Hoffman unveiled a Deepfake platform,Reid AI, to explore self-reflection and gain new insights through conversations with it. Augment, a competitor to GitHub Copilot, secured $252 millionin funding, reaching a $1 billion valuation to enhance AI tools for developers. Synologylaunchedadvanced data management and security solutions in India to combat ransomware threats. PyTorch released version 2.3, enhancing support for large language models and sparse inference. IIT Bombay-incubated Healthtech AI startup Endimension Technology raised INR 6 Crore in Pre-Series A fundingto expand AI research, team, and software capabilities. NVIDIA chief Jensen Huang personallyhand-delivered the first DGX H200 GPU to OpenAI, enhancing their AI research capabilities with increased memory and bandwidth. Six-month-old Cognition Labs, the creator of Devin, raised $175 million from Founders Fund, reaching a $2 billion valuation.  Apple released OpenELM, a series of four open-source efficient language models varying from 270M to 3B parameters, designed to improve accuracy with layer-wise scaling. Adobe launched Firefly Image 3 Beta, enhancing generative AI models in Photoshop with auto stylisation and structure reference capabilities for creative personalisation. Former Tech Mahindra chief CP Gurnani, alongside InterGlobe Enterprises promoter Rahul Bhatia, recentlyannounced the launch of AIonOS, a joint venture to transform businesses into AI-native enterprises, focusing on productivity and digital transformation. BCG anticipates AI driving 20% of its 2024 revenues, which it expects to double to 40% by 2026 as AI integration deepens within corporate operations. Cohere launched SnapKV, a new method for optimising memory usage and speeding up data processing in large language models.  OpenAI recently introducednew enterprise-grade features for its API customers, enhancing security, administrative control, and cost management to facilitate broader AI adoption. OpenAI also introduced aninstruction hierarchy to enhance the security of LLMs, ensuring it prioritise higher-privileged instructions to prevent jailbreaks and prompt injections. UiPath launched new data centres in Pune and Chennai, expanding its India footprint to enhance cloud services and automation solutions. Perplexity AI raised $63M at a $1B valuationto expand into the enterprise market and enhance its AI-driven search capabilities. California-based startup Profluent recentlyintroduced an AI-generated OpenCRISPR-1, which enables precise DNA editing in human cells. This advances the potential for targeted medical treatments. Cognizant partnered with Microsoft tointegrate generative AI into operations, acquiring 26,000 Copilot seats to enhance productivity and customer experiences. JPMorgan introducedFlowMind, an LLM-based system for automatic workflow generation that outperforms traditional methods without user feedback. Genpact launched an AI Innovation Center in Gurugram, India, to foster AI talent and democratise AI technology, enhancing global client solutions.

                                                           

This email was sent by support@analyticsindiamag.com to alexvarboffin.abbb@blogger.com Not interested? Unsubscribe | Manage Preference | Update profile Analytics India Magazine | 280, 2nd floor, 5th Main, 15 A cross, Sector 6, HSR layout Bengaluru, Karnataka 560102