tcs: Explainability key to easing AI worries, large-scale usage in biz: TCS’ Nidhi Srivastava

The Indian market is still at an exploratory stage with respect to generative AI, however the business sees a lot of interest across the board including from the government and Tata group companies, Nidhi Srivastava, vice president and global head of Google Biz Unit at TCS told ET.

Last week, TCS announced an expanded partnership with Google Cloud and the launch of its new offering, TCS Generative AI which leverages Google Cloud’s generative AI services.

“There is a lot of interest in the government in particular in terms of explainability and security aspects of generative AI,” she said. She added that while Indian enterprises are exploring their options, adoption will take a little more time. Within the Tata Group, she said, a lot of senior leaders are exploring various applications and use cases across group companies.

As part of the current offering with Google Cloud, TCS will train Google’s foundational generative AI models to offer customised solutions for customers based on their industry-specific requirements.

TCS rivals Infosys and Wipro also announced the launch of similar cloud-based generative AI offerings. However, analysts and industry stakeholders suggest that enterprise spend in this space will remain measured until there is further regulatory clarity on its usage.

“The moment the generative AI models are able to explain how they write and come to a decision, I think we all will start feeling more confident about the usage of AI in a big, industrialised way,” she said talking about large scale adoption of these solutions.

Globally, verticals like BFSI, retail, communication and travel and hospitality lead demand for generative AI solutions within TCS, said Srivastava. She added that with many customers having moved their data and operations to cloud providers, there is an increasing interest in the ways they can leverage the data on cloud through solutions like Generative and predictive AI. These collaborative exercises will utilize TCS Pace Ports or co-innovation hubs located in New York, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Amsterdam and Tokyo, where clients can also engage with academic researchers and start-up partners from TCS’ extended innovation ecosystem.“Customers are looking for responsible AI solutions for enterprise use cases. They are looking primarily for consultative advisory on AI selection as well as exploring POCs that can be put to production,” she said.
This new offering is powered by Google Cloud’s Generative AI tools – Vertex AI, Generative AI Application Builder and Model Garden, besides TCS’ own solutions.

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