Four of the country’s largest IT outsourcers—Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp, Infosys Ltd, HCL Technologies Ltd, and Wipro Ltd—are partnering with smaller firms and adopting their AI agents for software development, data analysis and marketing, highlighting the business transformation unleashed by generative AI three years ago.
While these partnerships could accelerate capability building and bring better economics for clients, the shift could eventually weigh on hiring, particularly for freshers and mid-level, task-oriented roles, experts said.
On 28 January, the fourth-largest Indian IT company, Wipro, announced a partnership with San Francisco-based Factory to deploy AI agents for software development purposes. Wipro would delegate software development work for clients to these AI tools, which would handle functions such as software testing and feature development. The Factory partnership reflects a broader shift among global enterprises, “from Al experimentation towards production-scale adoption,” Wipro’s chief technology officer Sandhya Arun said in a statement to stock exchanges.
AI agents are designed to undertake large workflows like handling an entire marketing programme and make decisions like humans, beyond performing mundane tasks like coding based on set guidelines.
The country’s second-largest IT company, Infosys, on 27 January, announced a partnership with San Francisco-based AI company Cursor to deploy AI software engineers that would build AI-centric software products. As part of the agreement, both companies would set up a centre of excellence to develop these agents.
This announcement comes three weeks after Infosys announced a partnership with Cognition, where the company would deploy AI software engineers for clients.
Infosys’s management expects work from agents to increase. “There are places where the economics (of the deal) have changed completely from a client perspective,” said Salil Parekh, CEO of Infosys, during the company’s post-earnings press conference on 14 January.
When the expertise of Infosys combines with software agents in legacy modernization work, the whole economics from a client perspective becomes much better, Parekh said, allowing “a lot of these projects which were not happening to start happening.”
Most Indian IT companies currently don’t disclose revenue contributions from automation tools.
For now, at least one brokerage sounded cautious on the contribution of AI agents to overall growth.
“While Infy’s Al commentary had a more positive tone, we remain cautious if trends such as the transition of managing people/processes to managing agents are net additive to durable growth,” said BMO Capital Markets analysts Keith Bachman, Bradley Clark, Adam J. Holets, and Jonathan Stein, in a note dated 14 January. “We believe projects around data are more additive in the near term for all providers, particularly if generative AI enterprise adoption continues to stall.”
However, HCLTech reported $246 million in advanced AI revenue in the July-December 2025 period. It ended last year with $13.85 billion in revenue, up 3.85% on a yearly basis.
On 22 December, HCLTech announced its acquisition of Belgium-based AI startup, Wobby, for $5.3 million. As part of the acquisition, HCLSoftware, which is the Noida-based company’s software development arm, would make use of Wobby’s AI data analyst agents. The acquisition is expected to close by February, according to the company’s press release.
On the other hand, Nasdaq-listed Cognizant announced a partnership with Palo Alto-based Typeface to deploy agents for marketing purposes on 26 January. Typeface uses AI agents to ideate and create marketing campaigns. As part of the engagement, Cognizant would help clients use Typeface software by providing advisory, creative and implementation services.
To be sure, Cognizant is an Indian heritage IT firm as about two-thirds of its 349,800 strong workforce is based out of India.
“The next generation of marketing operating models will look more like software than services, designed to sense demand, orchestrate activity and adapt in real time,” said S. Ravi Kumar, chief executive of Cognizant, as part of a press release dated 26 January.
Hiring signals
The companies, however, are divided on the impact of agent deployment on fresher intake. For now, none of the companies have outlined lower fresher hiring in the coming fiscal year.
Infosys said it is looking to hire 20,000 freshers in FY27. It is expected to meet its target of hiring the same number of graduates in the current fiscal year.
On the other hand, cross-city peer Wipro slashed its fresher target to 8,000 for the current fiscal year from its earlier stated goal of 10,000.
The company is now looking to create AI, data, and cybersecurity programs in partnership with universities and is hiring specifically from those programs.
Noida-based HCLTech has not outlined any fresher hiring plans for the next fiscal year, but expects to end the current year with more freshers than last year. The company has already hired 10,000 freshers in the first nine months of FY26 and is expected to add graduates in the current quarter as well. Cognizant is yet to announce fresher hiring plans for the year.
Analysts said the immediate impact of AI agent deployment may be felt at the mid-level.
“Over time, this (agent deployment) will materially change how headcount is deployed, even if total employment does not collapse. Demand will soften for mid-layer, task-oriented roles that agents can absorb, especially in areas like testing, reporting, basic development, and L1 analytics,” said Phil Fersht, chief executive of HFS Research.
Karan Uppal, lead IT analyst at Phillip Capital echoed the view. “We might see some downsizing in the Industry the way we saw in TCS and HCL. The aggressive nature of hiring might change and homegrown IT outsourcers might do just-in-time hiring for specialised skills or utilise existing workforce,” he said.
“IT service providers are comfortable keeping a light bench at this stage, which is why the utilisation levels are elevated across many companies,” Uppal added.
AI coding tool providers like Cursor are trying to diversify their client base and bring in more enterprise clients. “IT services companies are one of the enterprise channels for them, and hence we are seeing these partnerships (Infosys- Cursor, Infosys-Cognition, Wipro-Factory).”
“Partnering lets IT outsourcers shortcut experimentation cycles, access scarce talent, and test agent-based use cases without refactoring their entire delivery stack. This is less about inability and more about time-to-value. In a fast-moving agent ecosystem, buying or partnering beats building everything from scratch,” said Fersht of HFS Research.
