Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has begun a broad internal and external reset to prepare itself for an artificial intelligence–led future, as the IT services industry undergoes its most profound technology
transition yet. The renewed push reflects a decisive shift in AI adoption—from pilot projects and proof-of-concept work to scaled deployments closely tied to measurable returns on investment.
“The current wave represents a deeper structural change than any previous technology cycle, and every conversation today is an AI conversation,” said Aarthi Subramanian, executive director, president and chief operating officer, in an interview.
This transformation is being steered by a tightly aligned leadership team, with chief executive officer K Krithivasan setting the vision of building the world’s largest AI-led technology services company. Tata Sons reappointed Subramanian as COO in April 2025 as India’s largest software exporter navigates a major pivot towards AI. Before this role, she served as chief digital officer at Tata Sons and earlier held senior positions at TCS, including global head of delivery excellence, governance and compliance.
Over the past two fiscal years, TCS has reported modest growth amid geopolitical uncertainty and AI-driven disruption, even as it crossed the $30 billion revenue milestone in FY25. In the last six months, the company has taken several decisive steps, including laying off about 2% of its workforce—roughly 12,000 employees—entering the data centre business, and completing its first acquisition in nearly a decade.
Subramanian said Krithivasan is reshaping both customer and employee value propositions while defining what TCS’s operating model must look like in an AI-native world. Alongside Subramanian and chief strategy officer Mangesh Sathe, TCS has appointed Amit Kapoor as chief AI and services transformation officer, reporting to her, to sharpen the company’s focus on large-scale AI delivery.
“We are deliberately creating significant leadership bandwidth because this is an era of unprecedented change. That depth at the senior management level is critical to driving transformation at scale, with Krithi leading the charge,” she said, describing her long-standing working relationship with Krithivasan as a partnership built on trust and close collaboration.
Artificial intelligence is also forcing a rethink of the traditional IT services model. TCS has introduced a five-level autonomy framework across service lines to help clients progress from automation to autonomy, where AI executes an increasing share of tasks previously handled by humans. While this shift may displace certain roles, Subramanian said overall demand for new use cases will continue to grow. As a result, TCS has not scaled back hiring, even as it restructured its workforce through selective layoffs, mainly at senior and mid-level roles no longer aligned with future requirements.
Net additions
“TCS continues to add talent on a net basis, with around 19,000 net additions in the most recent quarter,” Subramanian said, adding that exits were handled with “extreme empathy and respect,” particularly for long-tenured employees, underscoring the company’s effort to balance transformation with human sensitivity.
The autonomy framework is being applied across application development, testing, infrastructure, enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation and business processes. This allows TCS to assess client maturity, define AI roadmaps and proactively share productivity gains, helping the company expand scope with existing customers and win new deals.
Internally, TCS has rolled out a programme called TCS to the Power AI, aimed at rewiring organisational culture so that each of its more than 600,000 employees becomes an AI practitioner rather than merely AI-aware. This includes expanded access to foundational models, hyperscaler tools and coding assistants. Recently, the company concluded what it described as the world’s largest AI hackathon, with 280,000 employees participating and more than 500,000 ideas and builds submitted.
TCS has also introduced weekly “AI Fridays” at physical AI labs across its centres, where cross-functional teams build solutions through time-bound sprints. Subramanian said this approach is flattening hierarchies and accelerating learning at scale. The number of employees with advanced AI capabilities has more than doubled over the past year to around 180,000.
Alongside cultural change, TCS is positioning itself as a live reference case for AI-led transformation. Internal functions such as IT, HR, finance, learning, procurement and legal are being redesigned using AI-first solutions, with a sharper focus on productivity and return on investment. “TCS must look and feel like the future we are selling to customers,” Subramanian said.
Engagement model
To speed up client adoption, TCS has formalised a three-step engagement model—innovate with AI, build with AI and scale with AI—combining immersive CXO workshops, rapid prototypes delivered in hours and full-scale deployments completed in weeks.
At the core of the strategy is TCS’s ambition to emerge as an end-to-end AI player, spanning data centre infrastructure, platforms and intelligent agents. This includes deeper partnerships with hyperscalers, enterprise software firms and AI-native companies, selective acquisitions and new ventures such as its data centre entity.
“Our play is—from infrastructure to intelligence,” Subramanian said. “This is the moment to fire up all cylinders.”
