AI disruption will be highest in BPOs, but it also creates opportunities: Ness Digital CEO Ranjit Tinaikar

While artificial intelligence (AI) has been a buzzword across industries, companies worldwide have yet to harness the full potential, says Ranjit Tinaikar, CEO of Ness Digital Engineering. Speaking to The Hindu during his visit to Mumbai, the New York-based tech leader stressed that leaders must first grasp the concept of AI to effectively guide their organisations through the transformative journey it entails.

“This journey is about re-skilling people,” Mr. Tinaikar said. He predicted that the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector would face significant disruption due to AI, with jobs in the ‘vanilla BPO world’ likely to be impacted the fastest. However, he framed this disruption as an opportunity for adaptation.

“The disruption would be the highest there. But a disruption also creates the biggest opportunities. I won’t frame it as the BPO world losing jobs; I would say it will need to adapt the first and the fastest,” Mr. Tinaikar explained. He suggested that AI could help BPOs generate more revenue or reduce service costs by leveraging data-driven use cases, even with fewer employees. “Right now, companies make money based on how many calls their agents handle, but AI will change that. The knowledge contained in those calls is valuable. If AI can process and analyse this data, firms can generate more revenue for their clients or reduce service costs. So, while the number of employees may decline, revenue per employee will increase. The revenue per Full-time Equivalent (FTE) will change,” he explained.

Mr. Tinaikar believes that over the past three years, companies have primarily focused on proof-of-concept projects and small-scale trials rather than leveraging AI to its full potential. “I don’t think I have come across anybody who has taken AI programmatically to transform a part of the business, except the AI companies. A reasoning being financial risk and the risk of new things,” he said.

Mr. Tinaikar observed that most organisations prefer to follow rather than innovate. “Most people are better at fast following than innovation. Once one or two things kick in, then everybody will follow. Most people don’t want to be on the bleeding edge of innovation,” he said.

He warned that incumbents in various industries would eventually face challenges as AI disrupts their business models. “CEOs talk about AI transforming the world, but they don’t want it disrupting their own businesses. It’s only the attackers who create innovation. Eventually, large companies will either acquire these challengers or restructure their businesses to adapt.”

According to Mr. Tinaikar, AI will significantly raise the bar for what is considered expertise. “Much of what we call expertise today is actually routine knowledge. AI is exceptionally good at making implicit knowledge explicit. Take cricket, for example. When Rohit Sharma hits a six in half a microsecond, that’s implicit knowledge. But if AI can analyse the mathematics behind that shot, it can program a robot to hit the same shot perfectly every time, reducing the power of the expert,” he said.

This ability to codify expertise will change the workplace, he said. “Experts have two choices—accept that their knowledge is now less exclusive, or relearn or go deeper into the expertise area, or go to a new area of expertise or adjacencies. The latter is the optimistic view, and it’s happening at an accelerated pace,” he said.

Regarding concerns that employees might share classified company data with AI tools like ChatGPT or DeepSeek, he said, “Each organisation has to decide what is the right way to employ AI and set a policy. For example, one of my clients said they will not use anything on DeepSeek because they don’t trust Chinese. That’s their policy. Depending on who you are and what the use cases are, you should have very explicit policies. It is just like, a gun can be used for attack or defence. How you use it is important, not the gun itself,” he said.

Jobs won’t disappear, but work will change

On the debate about AI replacing jobs, Mr. Tinaikar said that AI won’t necessarily eliminate jobs but will change how work is done. “It’s a myth that AI will take jobs away. Instead, it will create more projects and opportunities. Right now, every software platform operates on a simple principle—business rules are automated based on data in a database. AI adds a third layer where business rules themselves change dynamically based on new data. This means companies will have more projects, requiring more people, even if each project itself becomes more efficient.”

AI ethics and data privacy

Addressing concerns about AI ethics, bias, and data privacy, he said the industry is still in uncharted territory. “It’s like the Wild Wild West right now. Some platforms promise ‘ethical AI’ by preventing hallucinations and ensuring AI systems don’t provide misleading information. But the broader question is: How will AI impact organisations and society? For example, AI could allow senior professionals to spend less time coding and more time mentoring juniors. However, this could also mean fewer jobs for entry-level workers. These are ethical dilemmas we will need to navigate carefully.”

He stressed that senior leaders must act as watchdogs to prevent AI misuse. “AI is a powerful tool, but how we use it will determine whether it helps or harms industries and workers. Leaders need to ensure that AI implementation is responsible, ethical, and beneficial to both businesses and employees.”