With a huge talent base, India is rapidly emerging as a global hub for AI innovation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making waves in the technology world. Old ways of doing things are being replaced with more efficient processes, powered by AI platforms and solutions. Given the huge talent base in AI, India is emerging as an innovation hub for the world. Most foreign firms with facilities in India are doing cutting-edge innovations from Indian centres. US-headquartered software engineering company, Encora has been doing advanced AI innovations from India.

With its more than 5,000 employees in the country, spread across multiple cities, the company is providing solutions to critical problems across sectors. In a conversation with the Bizz Buzz, Sonali Kochar, Senior Vice President – Digital Experience, Encora said that the company is actively hiring freshers from top engineering colleges and integrating them with client projects from day one.

She said that its own AI-powered platform is improving efficiency to a large extent, resulting in completion of projects at a faster pace. According to her, India is a key geography for all AI-led developments in the world

What kind of work are currently being executed from Encora’s Indian operations? Are these centres critical to Encora’s global operations?

Encora is a software engineering company focussed heavily on AI and data. Our expertise lies in AI, data and cloud. We provide enterprise-wide solutions spanning across sectors like healthcare, travel, high-tech, logistics, and others. I, particularly, deal with digital experiences, which are related to ecommerce and app modernisation. We at Encora handle end-to-end delivery of these projects.

As far as India presence is concerned, Encora is present across multiple cities. Our main office is in Bengaluru. We also have offices in Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Ahmadabad. We have more than 5,000 people working in India and it is growing.

So, is the major delivery centre of Encora is in India?

Yes, we have quite a big presence in India. Apart from India, we also have good presence in LATAM (Latin America) as a near-shore centre.

Digital experience is everything that deals with consumers. When you are on a website, how do you purchase. Inside the products, how do you find the reviews? Not just the purchase, but also the whole customer experience journey is important.

So, for some customers, we are building the application from the scratch and for many, we are transforming their legacy platform for better user experience. It depends on the problems that we are trying to solve. Through our proprietary AI platform, we are leveraging AI across the lifecycle of the product. That helps us to build better digital experience for our client.

How operational efficiency has evolved after adoption of AI? Can you provide a brief perspective into this matter?

Recently, we were engaged with a client in which they wanted to upgrade their software. In this case, we tried AI to understand the current state and leverage AI to upgrade the version. Earlier, such project used to take four-six weeks but we reduced the time period by 70 per cent. So, reduction of time in legacy system has been substantial due to AI applications.

Engineers are now more on system thinking, setting goals, and governance aspects, while the repetitive tasks are being performed by the AI-powered applications. Definitely, this has led to reduction in team sizes. Team sizes have been reduced by 30-40 per cent. However, more work is getting generated on the higher end of the cycle.

What kind of impact is being seen on the pricing side? Can you provide some perspective into this matter?

Due to increase in efficiency, time period for completion of project is getting reduced. So, it’s a win-win situation for both client and service provider. Of course, pricing has come down.

However, it doesn’t have much impact, as a greater number of projects are coming our way due to efficiency improvements driven by AI. Same client is giving us more projects, which has been possible due to AI-led efficiency improvement.

Are you leveraging Agentic AI ecosystem? What kind of efficiency improvement are you witnessing as of now due to deployment of Agentic AI tools? Can you throw some light into this aspect?

We have our proprietary AI delivery platform, which is an operating system for delivery comprising agents. Depending on the client need, we build agents within this framework. If the need arises, we also develop agents outside this platform, depending on the client need.

However, I want to highlight that it is very important to use AI optimally, you need good human talent. AI needs smart professionals for its use. In enterprise, it is usually a complex system, where hundreds of pieces are working together. In this context, use of AI requires critical thinking. In case of UI/UX design, it is very important to consider the human element because user experience has a lot of human elements involved.

In the AI era, constant upskilling is required for keeping you abreast of the new technology developments. What kind of upskilling are being done by Encora for its employees in India?

We are ramping up upskilling of our entire workforce in the AI domain. Especially, Agentic AI is one of the focus areas in terms of upskilling. We have a separate division, which is specially focussed on the upskilling area. As you know, AI doesn’t work alone.

Everything in AI needs data. AI is run on cloud. That’s why we are making sure that all the specialisation areas are covered under the AI ecosystem. Secondly, we have started practices in areas like AI, data, and related domains. People with more than 20 years of experience work on this practice. The idea is to boost innovation in collaboration with the clients.

We do PoCs (proof of concepts) in this division, which help in solving many critical problems of clients. Thirdly, we have our own copilots. We have copilot licences; we have Encora ChatGPT. Also, we have our own proprietary platform, using which our engineers come up with practical solution to client problems.India is an innovation hub for us.

What kind of engagement do you have with engineering colleges in India? Do you hire freshers from college campuses?

Yes, we have active engagement with colleges in India under our special programme. Under this initiative, we work with top colleges of India. We are directly hiring them from these colleges and integrating them with client projects from day one. We are making sure our workforce is industry ready from the beginning.

How many freshers do you recruit each year? Can you give a hiring figure from colleges?

Last year, we hired around 200 freshers from college campuses in India. We run this programme for all our locations.