Nilekani declares IT far from dead: Infosys bets big on AI to power next growth wave
At Infosys’ InStep 25th anniversary, Nandan Nilekani, Narayana Murthy and Salil Parekh stress resilience, AI readiness and the importance of ‘learnability’ as Indian IT faces global headwinds.
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Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and chairman of Infosys, has shrugged off concerns about Indian IT’s prospects, saying the industry’s obituary has been written “many times.”
He expressed strong confidence that both Infosys and the broader sector are well-positioned to do well in the AI era.
“I think there are many times in the past when such obituaries have been written. So, whenever there's a major technology shift or a major business model shift, people say that.
But I'm very, very confident that in the current environment with the advent of AI, certainly at Infosys we can say that not only will we master this technology capability, but we’ll also actually use it to our advantage to again move forward and become even more critical to the world's technology needs,” he said.
Nilekani was part of the panel discussion with Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy and CEO & MD Salil Parekh to mark the 25th anniversary of InStep, the flagship global internship program of the software services major.
Parekh too struck an optimistic note about Infosys’ positioning in the AI-driven future, according to a Moneycontrol report.
“The best place for technology at scale is really Infosys, is really India. Because what we do here for large companies, there's no one else who has that sort of knowledge. These are complex large organisations. And we know how technology works there. Infosys is in a leading position. Actually, Nandan himself is helping, like guiding us into what we are doing on AI,” he said.
Parekh, who has led Infosys since 2018, positioned InSTEP as both a talent pipeline and a leadership engine. In the last five years alone, around 300 former interns have joined Infosys in client-facing and technology roles, with the number growing by 5–10 per cent each year.
Comparing the company’s current re-skilling drive in AI to the earlier digital transformation wave, Parekh said: “Everyone is becoming more AI-focused, and we will continue with that.” He added that Infosys’ early investments in data and cloud have strengthened its AI capabilities at scale.
The three leaders also emphasised the importance of upskilling, with Murthy underlining that “learnability” remains the most critical skill.
“The only constant is change. The most important attribute for every successful professional is what I call learnability. So, what is important is not so much the change in technology, it is human beings, it is human relationships, it's teamwork, all of that. But behind, at the bottom of all of this, is the idea of learnability,” Murthy said.
Further, Nilekani brushed off concerns about keeping up with rapid shifts in technology, noting that human skills will remain indispensable.
“I think we talked about learnability. We talked about human skills, about collaboration, empathy, leadership, which no AI can do. And we also believe that you must do first principles thinking. I think it's an area where people will have competitive advantage over AI,” Nilekani added.
Parekh recalled Infosys’ recent digital pivot as a template for navigating today’s changes. “If you remember a few years ago, we went through a digital change. We basically did full re-skilling. Everyone became more digital focused. Similar thing is now on to AI, and we will continue with that.”
