India’s $283 billion IT services sector has been caught in a broader market selloff, driven by fears that AI-powered automation could erode the labour-intensive delivery model that has underpinned decades of growth. But Wipro’s Chief Strategist and Technology Officer, Hari Shetty, argues that the current debate focuses too narrowly on task automation while overlooking a much larger structural transformation.
“When you look at the entire gamut of things that’s possible, it really appears like a large opportunity for us,” Shetty said in an interview, adding that he expects AI to create more jobs than it eliminates.
Beyond Automation: The Rise of the Autonomous Enterprise
According to Shetty, what businesses are witnessing today is largely task automation — incremental improvements that streamline specific workflows. The more profound shift, he said, lies in the emergence of the “autonomous enterprise,” where AI systems reshape end-to-end business operations.
“That’s a completely different ball game that will require IT services companies to work deeply with clients to actually convert them,” he said.
In this vision, service providers do more than maintain software systems. They become transformation partners, helping organizations redesign processes, integrate AI models and build governance frameworks around emerging technologies.
Shetty described AI as “probably the single biggest opportunity” facing the industry — comparable in scale to the discovery of electricity or the rise of the internet.
Jobs: Displacement or Creation?
Fears that AI could hollow out India’s traditional staffing pyramid — built on large numbers of junior engineers — have intensified as generative AI tools improve in coding, testing and documentation.
Shetty pushed back on that narrative, citing estimates from the World Economic Forum that AI could create 170 million jobs globally while disrupting roughly 92 million.
In India, he expects demand to grow for skills such as model training, data curation, AI governance and responsible AI implementation.
“The primary differentiation here is people who know AI and people who do not know AI,” he said.
Wipro continues to see strong demand for younger engineers who are “AI literate,” countering predictions that entry-level roles will disappear en masse.
A Decade-Long Investment Cycle
Shetty likened AI’s trajectory to the cloud computing boom, which initially sparked concerns about job losses but ultimately expanded the scope of IT services. As enterprises migrated to cloud platforms, service providers found new revenue streams in architecture, integration, security and optimization.
He expects AI to follow a similar arc — but on a larger scale.
“What companies need are partners who understand their domain processes deeply enough to help them transition to autonomous enterprises,” he said, predicting that this shift will shape technology spending over the next decade.
“We clearly think AI is a dominant force, at least for the next decade to two decades, in terms of the kind of business that it will drive.”
For Wipro and its peers, the wager is clear: AI will not dismantle the outsourcing model — it will redefine and potentially enlarge it.