There’s a near consensus today that we are in an AI-first world. Companies are trying to infuse AI into everything they do, and also working to build new AI models that can transform their businesses. Given the talent India has, we also have the opportunity to lead this global AI revolution. But that also requires us to upskill our talent to be able to use AI tools. That is what we discussed on a webinar we had earlier this week. Sangeeta Gupta, SVP and chief strategy officer at nasscom, said the association has created a fivestep framework on the AI skills that would be required. At the top of the pyramid, she said, is the AI expert – the PhD, data science experts who will build AI models from scratch. Then there are AI architects, who will develop AI-related software and applica – tions. The next layer is AI integra – tors, those who integrate AI tools and technologies into existing workflows. Then there are AI enthusiasts, who focus on using AI for things like improving productivity. Finally, there’s the AI literate, and that’s everyone. “Like we had the digital literacy as a campaign, we need AI literacy as a campaign in this country because you will have issues like deep fakes, and every citizen should be able to identify what is AI generated and what is not,” Sangeeta said.
But building great AI models also depends on how good your data is, and how well it is orchestrated. And that requires a host of other skills, which are equally important. Maulik Bhansali, CEO of NetWeb Software, noted that there is a huge need for skills in creating and preparing data, in cleaning and managing data, ensuring data is relevant to the use case you are building for, visualising data. He said you also need skills like AIOps that uses AI, machine learning, and big data analytics to automate IT operations tasks.
Rajesh Varrier, EVP and global head of operations at Cognizant, and CMD of Cognizant India, agreed that a strong foundation from a data standpoint was crucial to do anything from insights to re – ports to even driving the AI engine. “If the data set is not great, then the AI that runs on top of it is not going to do anything magical,” he said.
Sangeeta noted that since cloud is also crucial to AI models, that’s another area where skills will be required. “That is one place where you will see a lot of intersection points,” she said.
It’s not just for STEM folks
Rajesh said the era where software development was the forte of STEM graduates is gone, and now particularly for AI, there’s a need for people who have deep domain capability. “We need people who can ask the right questions to dis – cover problems and try to solve them. Design thinking is important. If you take the entire spectrum from experience design, which is relevant for applications, to solving complex problems, we need a mix of all kinds of skills today,” he said. Bhansali underscored the importance of critical thinking and understanding of human behaviour – like in designing for custom – er experience. Sangeeta noted the criticality of liberal arts, given is – sues like bias in AI models.
Upskilling & academia partnerships
Across India’s tech industry, the need to upskill employees for this AI-first world is today widely recognised. Most are implementing programmes with urgency. Sangeeta said based on the companies that provide re – ports to nasscom, more than a mil – lion employees have already got some form of AI training.
Rajesh said Cognizant has trained about 116,000 associates on generative AI. “We have something called Generative AI Runway where we bring together partners, clients, experts to share their expe – riences and also give our folks hands-on sessions,” he said.
The effort now is to partner with universities to ensure that freshers to the workforce are also AI-ready in some form. “Companies are es – tablishing CoEs in universities. Some are doing hackathons, expe – riential learning, so that students think about how they could use AI,” Sangeeta said.
