Cognizant’s Surya Gummadi on How Generative AI Improves Productivity

hi I'm James Maguire and on today's e Peaks we're talking about a subject that Executives and managers around the world are now dealing with which is how do to get the most from generative Ai and at the same time what's an effective strategy for a gentic AI which seems to be the fastest growing Subs sector of artificial intelligence to discuss that I'm joined by a major industry thought leader with me is sua gumati EVP and president cognizant America Sy absolutely thrilled to have you with us today James thank you thank you for having me today you know gen obviously we all know gets an enormous amount of Buzz and companies really want to get on board with it but it's it's not always easy it's it's very new uh even you know two years old of course you cha CHP debuted I know exactly two years ago this month still it feels very new lot so much change what what would you advise companies that want to get on board more but you know they want to use gen more but the cost is an issue some maybe the security is an issue what is your sense you know gen is the topic that is on top of everyone's mind today undisputedly and you're right you know there was a lot of discussion on that in the last two years so you know around its regulatory aspects ethics issues security and things like that but you know what you know gen is one one such technology disruption that we have seen in the recent past in in many ways it has very high diffusion rates and low cost of deployment rates what I mean by that is this technology can be diffused to end nodes very easily and can be deployed at a much lower cost you don't need whole lot of training to use the technology you don't need whole lot of resources uh you know to be deployed to understand or you know make best use of this technology unlike other technology disruptions where there was Heavy upfront cost to adopt this technology you don't need that upfront cost that heavy up front cost of course there is some amount of cost involved that said I mean you know almost all Enterprises across the planet will have their value chains disrupted using Genera AI period almost all Enterprise not almost all the Enterprise across the planet so some will be the fast adapters of the technology some will be the fast followers and the fast adopters of the technology will have an advantage and it would separate the winners versus U you know the losers over a period of time and this technology is very interesting I mean as you asked at C we partnered with Oxford um Oxford economics and we did a research on this subject and it came out that of in fact we took about roughly uh 18,000 jobs encompassing about 2,000 tasks or something like that and we did research across the industries it came out that almost 90% of jobs today will be impacted by this technology in some way or the other right this technology is going to make those jobs more efficient more better and about roughly 10% of jobs will potentially be eliminated and much more new jobs will be created so in short no one can escape this technology escapee this generative Ai and generate AI is going to be vious in many ways across the value chain you know the other really interesting thing is the idea of multi-agent AI or agentic AI it's not just a chat bot but actually it's agentic AI is a as you know is a virtual assistant that really becomes a a digital colleague for workers you can give it a task it can do a number of series of tasks in a row it it really can be enormously functional what what is your thoughts on the adoption of this this emerging technology any tips on on strategy for companies I mean you know this is a the next evolution of you know this technology in many ways agentic AI is nothing but as you rightly said these are AI enabled robots that execute humanik tasks and um you know there almost all the uh platforms today have agents sitting on top of it orchestrating the tasks across these platforms to deliver you know much faster better and efficient outcomes M and this technology is going to explode so in fact we at cognizant have um invested in an orchestration platform for this agentic AI what it does we call that as U you know Last Mile infrastructure because today you have different set of AI tools such as data platforms applications and things like that the cognizant platform sits on the top and orchestrates across these AI resources for faster deployment of AI and helps agents orchestrate across the different Platforms in the so I think you know agen ification is um going to rapidly expand in in my opinion over the next three or four quarters across the Enterprises and today we are seeing almost all the major um Erp software and other applications coming with agents already you know it's already there it's just that you know we have to deploy with the right data sets and then we have to create an orchestration framework across these agents so clearly cognizant is playing a role in the the platform you you mentioned really sounds highly functional what uh what might be say a problem that sometimes companies run into with with uh deploying a gentic AI like it doesn't work properly or it doesn't give the functionality or what's what's a headache you think some companies might run into that with that technology I mean you know uh see the use cases that could be uh or the this technology could be deployed across wide variety of use cases so since this technology is still evolving emerging and new so so we we completely don't know the uh ramifications of it if it's like AI I mean it's like ai ai could be deployed for good and AI could be deployed otherwise too so same thing for agen ification and um you know if we use identification for bad means the outcomes could be disastrous that is one element of it and it it applies I the same thing that applies to AI applies to agents too there I don't see a big difference in that MH yeah yes all right so if we if we look ahead and I if you think say oh 2025 2026 you your forecast for some near-term developments in in geni and agentic AI I mean how can companies be getting ready for it now yeah so the talent is going to be very key so we will have to have the right Talent strategy to be able to leverage these Technologies and create the agen ification framework across and get the best use of get the best benefits from this technology and the Agents architecture and framework so Talent is going to be extremely key almost all companies will have to double click on their talent strategy and make sure they have the right resources available to you know um to leverage this technology at the right time and beyond that I mean you know almost all the Enterprises across the planet are looking at their value chains to analyzing their value chains and optimizing their value chains once they analyze and optimize then they are trying to deploy these Technologies on the optimized value chain to get you know the better benefits from this so I think across across I think it's going to be the same analyze optimize undeploy the technology and make sure you have right talent and right resources you know I think that the talent piece there's no doubt that's going to be a real issue I think the talent for for the short-term release will continue to be expensive yeah um Siri a last thought before we go I know we're we're short on time but I I want to make sure get your key thoughts about agentic Ai and gen AI I mean I'm very excited about this technology I'm excited about the possibilities that AI or gen and agentic AI could um you know Embrace and this technology disruption in many ways uh is going to be a social equalizer based on our research um you know it is going to uh the people who are highly productive will get less benefited from these Technologies and the people who are less productive will get more benefited from these Technologies because the AI or gen or agents are going to help enhance the productivity overall productivity of the ecosystem so I think you know uh this whole humanity and the world would get benefited from these Technologies if deployed in the right way over the next four to five years I think this is exciting times ahead probably the best technology disruptions of our lifetime in many ways great I I I love that I love that thought about the productivity I think it's a really interesting fascinating thought so yeah I think you said it uh thank you so much for sharing expertise and uh please do come back and talk with us again sometime thank you thank you Js

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