Anant Adya, executive vice president and service offering head at Infosys
Infosys, India’s second-largest IT services provider, is finding success with its Cobalt platform as a catalyst for artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) deals.
The Bengaluru-based firm launched Cobalt four years ago to bring the ease of transitioning clients in their cloud-led digital transformation. Even as the company launched Topaz, its AI-first offering last year, Cobalt has been preparing clients for their next big jump in adopting AI.
“For us, Topaz is an extension of Cobalt. When it comes to GenAI kind of deployment, one needs a very strong data fabric. Data is generated by intelligent applications. All these run on cloud. To drive GenAI use cases and accelerate GenAI usage, customers need a robust cloud foundation,” said Anant Adya, executive vice president and service offering head at Infosys.
Over a video call, Adya, who also heads Cobalt and is responsible for all of Infosys’ Americas delivery, told Business Standard that GenAI is going to drive a lot of cloud consumption. However, the company did not share the number of AI and GenAI-led deals being worked on.
The fact that Cobalt is also acting as a funnel for GenAI deals for the company shows the maturity that the platform has managed to gain.
“Four years ago, when we launched Cobalt, most of the business, around 60-70 per cent, would come from IT efficiency projects, which is where most of the spending was happening. Now, almost 60-70 per cent of our business is ‘grow, disrupt, and transform’ and only 30-40 per cent is related to technology or run-the-business kind of engagement,” explains Adya.
In 2021, when Cobalt was launched, it was all about ‘Save and optimise’ projects. This means deals that involved moving from a capital expenditure (capex) model to an operational expenditure (opex) model, or were about legacy transformation, including a shift to a cloud environment.
“As we evolved through the journey of Cobalt, it moved towards what we call Grow and disrupt,” he added.
For Infosys, Digital contributed 62.9 per cent of revenue in FY23, growing at 25.6 per cent. The company, post-FY23, discontinued sharing the revenue break-up between digital and core services. Within Digital, cloud offering is one of the biggest plays for Infosys.
When asked if the hype around GenAI seems to be high as clients are still in the proof-of-concept stage, Adya said, “The second half of 2024 will see adoption of GenAI in a big way. In the last one or one-and-a-half quarters, we have seen customers taking use cases into production.”
He further added, “It is certainly not as big as what we had anticipated, but we are hopeful that over the next few quarters it will pick up in a big way.”
When asked if a platform approach works better for the company than single products (like Finacle, which is a core banking solutions product from the company), Adya agrees that it does seem to be a long-term strategy for the company.
“Both Cobalt and Topaz are platform solutions and services. That has been our strategy so that we can execute any project seamlessly. For Infosys, this also has meant a change in how we also give services. Now almost 60 per cent of the work on any deal happens using tools, technologies, and solutions that we have built. Essentially, Cobalt and Topaz have accelerated the journey of customers,” he added.
First Published: Sep 16 2024 | 7:36 PM IST
