At a media roundtable on Friday in Chennai, marking Hexaware’s AI Day, he said parts of the IT services business would become deflationary as AI automates activities such as IT operations, testing and defect management.
The industry would therefore need to identify new areas of work to offset the impact, Srikrishna said.
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“We are not running away from the deflationary impact of AI,” he said
Hexaware is looking to offset the impact by creating new areas of work.
SaaS model faces disruption
The impact of AI could extend beyond IT services delivery to the software market itself. AI is changing the economics of building customised software, making it less expensive and less time-consuming for enterprises to develop applications for their own requirements, Srikrishna pointed out.
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He estimated the global software-as-a-service (SaaS) market at around USD 900 billion.
Srikrishna said AI could make it viable for enterprises to replace selected SaaS applications with customised software.
While regulatory and other constraints would limit the opportunity in some areas, he pointed out that discontinued products and certain low-code and no-code applications as potential use cases.
This could also alter the economics of IT services.
Srikrishna noted that productivity gains from AI would not necessarily translate into higher margins, as part of the benefit could eventually flow back to customers through pricing.
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Workforce mix to change
“The impact on the workforce is likely to be reflected in the type of talent required rather than simply in employee numbers,” he said.
Srikrishna said the industry would continue to require functional directors, architects and engineers, with the combination varying according to the nature of the work.
Hiring pressure would continue even as the demand for different categories of technology talent changes, he highlighted.
Legacy modernisation
AI could also open up opportunities in legacy technology modernisation.
Srikrishna recalled that enterprises have traditionally been reluctant to modernise legacy systems because of the cost, time and risk involved.
Hexaware uses deterministic systems to first establish an understanding of legacy code and then applies AI to generate documentation, graphs and other outputs.
Srikrishna said deterministic discovery was important because critical legacy systems require consistent results.
Zerovity as Hexaware’s AI platform
Against this backdrop, Hexaware is developing Zerovity its proprietary application intelligence and agentic AI-led delivery platform.
Srikrishna described Zerovity as a common platform built around a shared understanding of an enterprise, designed to support multiple services rather than treating coding, IT operations, security and other functions as separate technology silos.
The platform forms part of Hexaware’s broader “zero friction” approach, which covers areas including vulnerabilities, technology debt, development backlogs, defects, IT tickets and software licensing.
Srikrishna described Zerovity as a journey for enterprises rather than an immediate promise.