Mphasis CEO Nitin Rakesh Outlines Massive AI Growth Roadmap At Mumbai Analyst Meet | Business News

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:11]Welcome back and uh as as promised we have emphasis the management in fact doing an analyst meet they've launched an enterprise agency platform aimed at helping clients move from AI experimentation to measurable business outcomes CEO Nathan Rakkesh says the company already has lighthouse clients on the platform with nearly 70% of its current pipeline carrying an AI component. Management highlighted a record deal pipeline, growing adoption in BFSI, retail and insurance and expects AI le transformation spending to remain a key demand driver. listening.

[00:00:52]>> If you ask any CIO or a seuite exact today, especially in in um North America where there's a significant amount of focus on adoption of AI, a few things that have held them back from actually seeing the impact. Firstly, data is almost always cited as a reason why it's not readily available or ready to be used and not enough time to clean the data and all of that. Second, all of them have done they have all access to the right tools, models, agentic stacks, money, they've all done experiments, but very few have actually, if at all, have managed to find a scalable, deployable, and explainable AI strategy for a simple reason that if you start by having the mindset of building an AI strategy, you're losing the the sight from what is it that you're really trying to drive as an outcome, right? So the connection to driving a business outcome, the connection to helping transform the business operation at speed and scale is what we're trying to solve for. Instead of waiting for a year or two years, we can we can start showing proof of value within a matter of weeks, >> right?

[00:01:54]>> And that's the power of emphasis, >> right? What will be the marketing strategy for Tria? Is this a product an enterprise agency product which will be available to all uh the your clients or have you begun sounding out uh new clients potential clients to market this product?

[00:02:12]>> We've already had uh lighthouse clients on on the stack um especially in the last two to three months since we u stitched this together with the the acquisition of our last u AI platform continuum.

[00:02:26]So we have lighthouse customers. We have initial set of clients where the platforms either implemented or being implemented. And the effort from us from our side really now is to do a full-scale market launch starting next week. Uh in addition to not having the lighthouse clients, we have a pretty active healthy pipeline already where we should be able to drive certain true solution uh you know constructs using tri >> right. Uh so with an emphasis how much is AI driving your processes right now in terms of like even you know your products how much is AI embedded in that and uh kind of like what is like been the reception your clients have given to a AI uh becoming a part and parcel of your products your offerings. So firstly this is a platform. We've also launched two new product lines that are powered by the platform. Right? So the reason the way to think about this is is uh this isn't a product in itself because the product solve a very specific problem.

[00:03:28]>> Product lines will actually build the bridge between the platform and instant instanting that platform in in context of a real problem to be solved. So almost 70% of our current pipeline has an element of AI embedded into it. We've only launched the platform today. So as we go forward, we'll start drawing a direct correlation between the platform enabled pipeline and platform enabled deals versus just AI enabled deals. I'll be surprised if over the next 12 to 18 months anything we do with any customer doesn't have an element of AI embedded in it. So that's the direction of travel we headed towards. How much of that will be emphased by emphasis tria versus how much of that may be non-triya solutions is something we will see as as time time goes by. Uh returning back to Tria uh what are the industries you know which you feel uh will benefit the most from TRIA uh will it be aviation banking healthare >> as such it's an industry agnostic platform >> okay >> where domain context and and domain contextualized models come into play we'll obviously have to make that investment we are starting with obviously all our businesses that we service today banking financial services insurance retail CPG logistics and travel healthcare >> right >> and u I would say the early adoption is really happening out of BFS uh retail and CPG >> uh and we've seen some early adoption in in insurance as well but it's a question of how quickly can we take those industry specific value streams >> sure >> and apply agency to them >> right uh in terms of hiring uh what are emphasis's goals now in are you is hiring uh something you know you're looking to ramp up I mean for catering to the US market to North America I mean to Asia >> I think hiring is a is is not an input factor but an outcome of what the pipeline looks like and what we need to drive >> how is it looking now >> I pipeline has never been better it's at record levels we've talked about that in the past so are we going to add people yes but I think the real revolution >> how many >> we don't normally give out that number because we don't run the business like that even if you ask me do I have an idea of how many people we will hire in FI27 my answer is no because we're on a rolling 90-day you know supply chain Model and I think with the launch of the platform we will obviously adjust because the whole point of launching the platform is to create reuse versus start bespoke every time >> right uh and also in terms of like you know new products uh going ahead uh in this year I you looking to well launch more >> yeah I think we've just launched emphasis tria and the two product lines so over the next 3 to 6 months we want to make sure that there is enough and more adoption and and as I said implementation at lighthouse customers there will be additional opportunities to launch new product lines powered by emphasis tria but at this point I think let's we just very focused on these two product lines and the platform >> right uh also brings me you know to that question about you know the impact of AI okay you have claude you have chat GPT anthropic uh and I mean they are making waves globally what is the lesson for Indian technology industry I mean what how fast we need to you know catch up and how fast we need to innovate as a company how would emphasis innovate >> I think we already fired a a shot around the bow right by saying that we are taking the position of agency applied right we've always talked about our industry as the industry that applies the next new technology into the client enterprises our understanding of client context client domain uh brownfield environments combined with our ability to bring deep engineing capab ability together is what differentiates us. So from that standpoint, these are all very powerful tools that you talked about.

[00:07:14]But demonstrating the power of a tool versus taking accountability for driving an economic outcome are two different things. So we are in the latter category and we are very proud that we've now brought our own platform to life that actually has the ability for us to not only drive an economic outcome but take accountability and governance for it.

[00:07:31]>> Sure. Uh Blackstone has been uh I mean it was a majority owner of emphasis uh in since 2016. I mean it's been it's been basically uh a stakeholder in emphasis for the last 10 years. Okay.

[00:07:45]Now they have a 31% stake. Uh now this journey with Blackstone uh what have the synergies you've built with your owner and I mean how how has that association with Blackstone helped you? I think again if you look at the look at our own company's track record of the previous 10 years, it's it's a stark difference because having a very financially motivated long-term shareholder that lets the management team make all the right investments for the future of the business >> has yielded some fantastic returns for all stakeholders.

[00:08:19]>> They've been a really strong partner, right? they've brought best practices, governance, management teams, right incentivization, right board construct and right support in the market. So for for us it's been a very very fortunate association. I came on board alongside you know that that stakeholder change right after uh of course I work for all all stakeholders not just one but I think the level of support and commitment that they've shown in in this long tenure of 10ear investment is is exemplary and I think that's part of the reason why we had the ability and the confidence to be able to take a decision like this where we we are now moving to the next phase of our own you know company's evolution and hopefully we will lead the industry in this evolution >> right uh how do you gauge the deal pipeline from the the United States, particularly North America.

[00:09:08]>> I think demand is uh is robust, but demand is also shifting away from what it used to be to a set of asks from the client where they're looking for a combination of productivity and and efficiency while looking for an opportunity to apply AD to their business for to to transform the businesses. So I think if you can bring these two together and you can do it at speed and scale, there is a lot of business to be had. uh that was the emphasis of management talking on the sidelines of the analyst meet that was held uh in Mumbai.