India-based IT consultancy and system integrator Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has launched a generative AI aggregation platform for enterprise customers and a new IoT lab in the US, with a stated remit to support sensor deployments feeding into developing industrial AI projects. It has also published a major poll of global billion-dollar companies in 12 industries that says four in five, at least, are already using AI to drive productivity.
After a period of “exuberance”, peaking in 2023, the enterprise market is now engaged in earnest to make AI work, concluded TCS. “We are now entering an era of wide-and-deep enterprise AI adoption,” commented Harrick Vin, chief technology officer at the firm. In total, 86 percent said they have already deployed AI to “enhance existing revenue streams or create new ones”. Indeed, the focus from enterprises is mostly an expansive one.
Sixty-nine percent are using it to spur innovation and grow revenue, rather than on productivity improvement and cost optimization, said TCS. At the same time, only one in 25 (four percent) have “transformed their business” with AI, and nearly a quarter (24 percent) have not moved beyond an initial exploratory phase. Respondents said barriers include their infrastructure and expectations, plus a failure to properly measure results.
About three quarters (72 percent) said they “don’t have the right [AI] metrics”. (All of which is probably intended to highlight the need for consultancy and integration, of course.) Four in five (81 percent of) highlight the need for global AI standards and regulations. But their optimism is unbowed, it seems. Three in five (57) percent report “excitement” about AI; almost half (45 percent) think their staff will need to use generative AI to do their jobs – “in three years”.
There are a bunch of other stats: half (54 percent) think AI will have as big an impact as the internet, if not bigger; over half (55 percent) are actively making changes in their organisations already; two thirds (65 percent) say their competitive advantage will still come from humans. Finance, human resources, and marketing departments claim to have the most completed AI projects (completion rate of 28/9 percent, each). The report can be found here.
The poll is presented as “one of the largest surveys of its kind”, quizzing 1,300 “senior business leaders” with responsibility for profit-and-loss in their companies in 12 industries in 24 countries. All of the respondents work for enterprises with an annual turnover higher than $1 billion; half have turnover higher than $5 billion, said TCS, invariably making note of its AI expertise within its cloud computing business, since rebranded as ‘AI/Cloud unit’.
The firm’s new generative AI platform, called AI WisdomNext, aggregates multiple generative AI services into a single interface, it claims. It explained:”Solution designers… find it difficult to select, experiment, and decide on the right foundational models to use. Foundational models are constantly evolving, and each model offers different capabilities in terms of mode of usage, cost, and effectiveness.”
It went on: “[This platform] helps businesses choose the right models and simplify the design of new business solutions using gen AI tools. It also enables businesses to reuse pre-existing components to accelerate the design.” The platform has been deployed with TCS’s largest customers – “to create value… and build prototypes”. It cited a big US advertising company, a big US insurance company, and a big UK bank.
These customers are mostly using AI to automate IT processes, as well as to bring some integrations and insights. The TCS platform features preconfigured industry solution blueprints, intelligent ‘evaluator bots’ to compare gen AI models and related tech stacks, cost optimisation tools, and portability across cloud platforms and generative AI systems. It said the service can help customers to “navigate a diverse and quickly evolving AI marketplace and rapidly compose ‘art-of-the-possible’ solutions”.
The new IoT lab in the US, at a 3,000 square-foot site in Cincinnati, Ohio, has a related purpose. It will carry the company’s various IoT solutions for the manufacturing, energy, and life sciences sectors. It goes by the name, Bringing Life to Things Lab. TCS stated: “The lab is designed to support the rapid prototyping, experimentation, and large-scale implementation of AI, gen AI, and IoT engineering solutions.”
The lab also offers TCS’s so-called ‘neural manufacturing solution’, to supply US factories with new Industry 4.0 smarts, as well as its connected healthcare platform, which does the same for personalised medicine. The lab is focused on IoT and AI applications for performance athletes and automakers, as well.
Amit Bajaj, president for TC in North America, said: “On the demand side, structural shifts such as energy transition, supply chain relocation and AI are requiring significant new production capacity in the US that is connected, intelligent and autonomous by design. On the supply side… advances in connectivity, sensor,and AI technology [at the edge] is reinventing customer experience, personalised products, and connected manufacturing.
“TCS’ investment in the Bringing Life to Things Lab in Ohio will help our clients bridge the traditional divide between operational and digital technology by rapidly turning their ideas into minimum viable products that reimagine their value chain at scale. With its strategic location in Cincinnati, home of TCS’ largest American delivery centre, the lab is well positioned to tap into the area’s tech talent to help our customers across North America.”
