Companies like Genpact have been working with Artificial Intelligence for over a decade, BK Kalra, the new chief executive of India’s largest business process management firm Genpact said. Gen AI has a positive impact and opens up new vistas for the New York City headquartered company which started as a captive of GE, as well as the larger IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS) sector at large, Kalra told ET in an exclusive interview.
“Typically, a number of us - certainly Genpact - deal with many Fortune 500 and many leading enterprises globally, and all of them need to infuse this change with people who understand not only technology but understand the domain,” Kalra said.
A granular understanding of the core operations of banks, insurance companies, manufacturing companies, finance and accounting, supply chain of CPG companies, and so on, is needed in order to insert data and AI for enterprises, he said.
At the same time, the problem of hallucinations by AI is a red line in the corporate world, where trust is currency.
“If there is any meaningful result that doesn't go out, the trust can evaporate faster from enterprises, and people like us who are operators at scale bring that trust-enabled AI to production grade in large companies,” Kalra said.
Trust involves traceability of data, explainability of the results thrown up by AI algorithms, and reliability based on high degrees of privacy and security, he explained. These are the elements of genpact’s responsible AI framework, and any solution deployed to clients goes through a responsible AI board first.
The pace of change in Gen AI technology is fast and will continue to accelerate, Kalra noted, necessitating investment in the partner ecosystem. While much of the innovation happens within Genpact, a lot more innovation is done with partners, who are also rapidly investing in the technology, by leveraging the solutions they are developing and contextualising them for clients, Kalra said.
Internally, Genpact is also investing substantially in upskilling.
Genpact's employees in small towns and cities like Jodhpur, Warangal, and Madurai have also been trained on AI and data, said Kalra.
Kalra succeeded the former president and chief executive officer NV ‘Tiger’ Tyagarajan who retired in February 2024. Kalra soon after announced a sharper execution strategy for the company. The company reported its second quarter earnings this month and saw its total revenue rising 6% year-over-year, at $1.18 billion. Its net income grew 5% Y-o-Y at $122 mil ..
Exuding optimism the company revised its annual revenue guidance upward. It said that it expects total annual revenue to be in the range of $4.65 billion to $4.70 billion, representing year-over-year growth of approximately 4.0% to 5.0% as reported, up from the prior guidance of approximately 2.5% to 3.5% as reported.
As per the Q2 earnings call details, GenAI bookings in the first half of 2024 are already up more than 10 times compared to full-year of 2023, with more than 95% of GenAI bookings year-to-date contracted on non-FTE basis (i.e are outcome focussed). The firm now has more than 80 GenAI solutions in production environments with clients either deployed or going live
Kalra noted that, despite rapid advances brought in by GenAI, the role of humans remains relevant.
Genpact has about 1,30,000 employees world wide and 65-70% of them are in India. The company’s internal upskilling and reskilling platform, Genome saw employees clocking over 10 million training hours in this year, said Kalra.
He added that more than 1,00,000 employees are actively learning about foundational Generative AI, and 70,000 have completed entry-level training, while 18,000 have completed more advanced work.
“On GenAI and AI, as we see it, it is a total addressable market and total contract value enhancer for us. We see that in our pipeline, we see that in our conversations,” Kalra said.
“Typically, a number of us - certainly Genpact - deal with many Fortune 500 and many leading enterprises globally, and all of them need to infuse this change with people who understand not only technology but understand the domain,” Kalra said.
A granular understanding of the core operations of banks, insurance companies, manufacturing companies, finance and accounting, supply chain of CPG companies, and so on, is needed in order to insert data and AI for enterprises, he said.
At the same time, the problem of hallucinations by AI is a red line in the corporate world, where trust is currency.
“If there is any meaningful result that doesn't go out, the trust can evaporate faster from enterprises, and people like us who are operators at scale bring that trust-enabled AI to production grade in large companies,” Kalra said.
Trust involves traceability of data, explainability of the results thrown up by AI algorithms, and reliability based on high degrees of privacy and security, he explained. These are the elements of genpact’s responsible AI framework, and any solution deployed to clients goes through a responsible AI board first.
The pace of change in Gen AI technology is fast and will continue to accelerate, Kalra noted, necessitating investment in the partner ecosystem. While much of the innovation happens within Genpact, a lot more innovation is done with partners, who are also rapidly investing in the technology, by leveraging the solutions they are developing and contextualising them for clients, Kalra said.
Internally, Genpact is also investing substantially in upskilling.
Genpact's employees in small towns and cities like Jodhpur, Warangal, and Madurai have also been trained on AI and data, said Kalra.
Kalra succeeded the former president and chief executive officer NV ‘Tiger’ Tyagarajan who retired in February 2024. Kalra soon after announced a sharper execution strategy for the company. The company reported its second quarter earnings this month and saw its total revenue rising 6% year-over-year, at $1.18 billion. Its net income grew 5% Y-o-Y at $122 mil ..
Exuding optimism the company revised its annual revenue guidance upward. It said that it expects total annual revenue to be in the range of $4.65 billion to $4.70 billion, representing year-over-year growth of approximately 4.0% to 5.0% as reported, up from the prior guidance of approximately 2.5% to 3.5% as reported.
As per the Q2 earnings call details, GenAI bookings in the first half of 2024 are already up more than 10 times compared to full-year of 2023, with more than 95% of GenAI bookings year-to-date contracted on non-FTE basis (i.e are outcome focussed). The firm now has more than 80 GenAI solutions in production environments with clients either deployed or going live
Kalra noted that, despite rapid advances brought in by GenAI, the role of humans remains relevant.
Genpact has about 1,30,000 employees world wide and 65-70% of them are in India. The company’s internal upskilling and reskilling platform, Genome saw employees clocking over 10 million training hours in this year, said Kalra.
He added that more than 1,00,000 employees are actively learning about foundational Generative AI, and 70,000 have completed entry-level training, while 18,000 have completed more advanced work.
“On GenAI and AI, as we see it, it is a total addressable market and total contract value enhancer for us. We see that in our pipeline, we see that in our conversations,” Kalra said.