Tata Consultancy Services to build 8,900-strong AI integration team

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is planning to assemble a team of forward-deployed engineers (FDEs) that could top 8,900 staff as it looks to accelerate customer AI adoption.

“We would be […] ensuring ​that we have as many as 1% to 1.5% of our associates who could be ⁠what you would call FDEs,” said K. Krithivasan, chief executive of IT giant TCS, in an interview with Reuters.

With a total workforce of approximately 593,000, this would equate to between 5,900 and 8,900 employees. It is unclear whether TCS would form the team from new hires, reskilled staff, or a mix.

FDEs work within client organisations to deploy and maintain organisation-specific AI tools, as well as share best practices and sectoral knowledge with staff.

While AI is seen as a potential productivity booster in professional services, it can be difficult to implement in a cost-effective manner and in line with organisational expectations. Recent Gartner research, for example, found just 28 per cent of AI infrastructure projects meet ROI expectations.

TCS is also looking to make acquisitions in AI, cybersecurity, and data security, Krithivasan said. Its last major acquisition was its $700 million all-cash purchase of Coastal Cloud, a US-based Salesforce consulting firm, which it completed in January.

TCS already has a range of AI and digital transformation services. In his interview with Reuters, Krithivasan noted that these offerings and others would still be necessary even as businesses use AI to automate more functions such as coding.

“What you need ​is a deep knowledge of ​the customer environment to ⁠make it work,” he said. “That is where we differentiate ourselves. This has nothing to do with cost arbitrage. It’s essentially because of the talent pool that we have built.”

TCS will face competition from other large enterprises in offering clients access to FDEs and assistance with AI deployment.

In May, Anthropic announced its own enterprise AI services company backed by Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs.

The same month, OpenAI announced the OpenAI Deployment Company, based largely on its acquisition of the AI consulting and engineering company Tomoro and its 150 FDEs. The venture is backed by 19 global investment firms such as BBVA, Goldman Sachs, and Softbank Corp.

On 2 July, Microsoft announced Microsoft Frontier Company, a $2.5 billion business backed by 6,000 FDEs intended to help customers deploy AI models from Microsoft and third-party developers.

The new venture will work with Microsoft’s existing systems integration partners including Accenture, Capgemini, EY, KPMG, and PwC, all of which compete directly with TCS.

AWS has also launched its own FDE unit, into which it has already invested $1 billion.