Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Sep 10: Wipro is moving towards a "human-AI operating model", with its artificial intelligence initiatives generating productivity equivalent to the work of around 20,000 employees without resulting in layoffs, the company's Chief Technology Officer Sandhya Arun has said.

Instead of cutting jobs, Wipro has redeployed employees to other roles within the organisation as AI takes over certain tasks.

According to Reuters, Wipro had around 243,000 employees in June and is preparing its workforce for closer collaboration between humans and AI agents.

The company has already trained and certified more than 100,000 employees in advanced AI-related skills as part of its effort to make its workforce AI-ready.

Wipro is not seeking to replace every employee with an AI agent. Instead, workers are increasingly expected to manage and work alongside AI systems.

"It could be the same engineer managing a bunch of agents," Arun said, highlighting how employees' roles could evolve as AI becomes more deeply integrated into daily operations.

"The shift has to be from productivity to outcomes," she said.

Wipro's approach reflects a broader transformation underway in India's information technology industry, where companies are preparing for workplaces in which human employees and AI agents operate alongside each other.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has previously indicated that IT companies could slow hiring as AI becomes a larger part of their workforce. TCS is also planning to build a team of up to 8,900 forward-deployed engineers, while Infosys is looking at around 6,000 such engineers over the next few years.

These engineers are expected to work closely with clients and help them adopt AI technologies. Wipro is also expanding its pool of forward-deployed engineers, although it has not disclosed a specific target.

For Wipro, however, the challenge extends beyond getting employees to use AI. The company wants its workforce to understand how to work effectively with AI and use it to deliver measurable business outcomes.

While AI is already helping Wipro achieve productivity equivalent to around 20,000 employees, higher productivity does not automatically translate into higher revenue.

According to Reuters, Wipro is the only one among India's top four IT companies that does not disclose revenue generated from AI.

Analyst Manoj Chandra Jha of Nord-IQ Research said Wipro remains in the early, cost-absorbing phase of AI monetisation.

The company is spending significantly on AI training and partnerships, but the key test will be whether these AI initiatives translate into revenue and ultimately help improve profit margins.

The shift indicates that India's IT sector may be moving away from viewing AI solely as a tool for reducing workforce requirements towards a model where employees manage AI systems and focus more on business outcomes.