AI & India Tech: NASSCOM on Growth & Hiring

New Delhi, Apr 26 (PTI) Artificial intelligence will not be a threat to the Indian technology industry, instead it will accelerate the growth and continue hiring people, according to apex IT industry body NASSCOM Chairman Srikanth Velamakanni.

Velamakanni has taken over the top leadership charge of NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Service Companies) at a time when the Indian IT industry is facing twin challenges: geopolitical turmoil and disruption by artificial intelligence.

"AI is going to accelerate India's tech industry. It's not going to be a threat to our tech industry. That is the most important thing. If one understands that, I think we're in a very good place because firstly, there is a significant performance improvement.

"Secondly, there's a lot of belief in the future of this industry. The tech industry has a very bright future, and I want to make sure that the world recognises that in my tenure here at NASSCOM," he said.

In the recent earnings call, TCS shared plans to hire around 25,000 freshers in the financial year 2027, while the rest of the companies have either shown degrowth in headcount or plan to go with limited hiring. TCS has also reduced its hiring plan to 25,000 from 44,000 freshers it hired in FY'26.

Velamakanni acknowledged the reduction in hiring trends but expressed optimism around the growth of the technology industry driven by artificial intelligence, which will, in turn, trigger demand for talent.

He said that there has been a net addition in TCS numbers in the reported quarter, and once structural adjustments in the industry are completed, then there will be a difference in hiring patterns.

"We know that the pace of hiring has decreased. There is no question about that. That's the elephant in the room. Part of that is because growth has been lower than expected.


"In addition, there is compression coming from various kinds of AI technologies, which are making it easier to do the same work with fewer human hours. Now, as AI becomes even better, the need for enterprise AI will just dramatically go up," he said.

Velamakanni said that every business has to think of transforming processes, workflow etc with AI which will create a multi-trillion dollar opportunity for the industry.

"That multi-trillion dollar opportunity, as it scales up, even though tech per se will become cheaper, the number of things that we need in tech will dramatically expand. It's a 1000 times expansion with a 10 times compression, which means a hundred X expansion is still possible. The best days of the tech industry are ahead of us. As growth restores, employment will also start to pick up," he said.

According to NASSCOM estimates, the Indian tech industry approaches the USD 300 billion revenue milestone in FY 2026 from about USD 282 billion in FY'25.

Talking about challenges being imposed by geopolitical turmoil, Velamakanni said the geopolitics of the world is absolutely beyond any party's control, but it is certainly creating some risks and uncertainty.

"When there's uncertainty, people freeze and they delay decision-making. We'll see delayed decision-making across the board with the continued geopolitical uncertainty. That can never be a good thing. We cannot solve the geopolitical issues. I think what we can do is to create resilience in the organizations and in the tech industry overall and overall resilience in supply chains and so on. I think at an India level and certainly," he said.

Velamakanni said that will make best efforts to help companies improve their performance.

"There is significant growth momentum that we have to restore in this industry. Helping the industry restore its growth momentum, whether it's revenue growth, profitability growth, all of that stuff. Secondly, also see this big picture: The world needs to understand that the tech industry in India is actually at a point of inflection where it will actually go to a completely new level with AI," he said.