Threat to Large IT Firms From Anthropic AI Is Overblown, Says Cognizant Chief

Rapid rise of artificial intelligence, particularly autonomous coding tools from startups like Anthropic, has sparked intense anxiety across the global software sector. Whispers of massive job losses and the structural collapse of traditional IT service models have dominated recent tech headlines. However, one of the leading voices in the industry has stepped forward to effectively silence the panic.

Babak Hodjat, the Chief AI Officer at Cognizant, recently dismissed these mounting fears, declaring that the perceived existential threat to large IT services firms is significantly "overblown."

Current anxiety primarily stems from the rapid advancement of AI agents capable of autonomously generating, debugging, and updating complex computer code. Many market analysts hastily speculated that these breakthroughs would bypass the need for traditional, labor-intensive IT services, essentially allowing enterprises to automate their tech infrastructure overnight.

Hodjat, whose foundational work previously helped power Apple’s Siri, emphasized that enterprise technology is rarely that simple. He noted that corporate clients are nowhere near being able to rely entirely on a single, all-purpose AI agent to run their mission-critical operations.

"That mapping is our job; it does not come just automatically out of the box," Hodjat explained.

While modern AI tools are incredibly powerful, businesses still desperately require human expertise for complex engineering, seamless systems integration, and strict data governance. Translating a raw AI model into a secure, customized enterprise solution is precisely where IT giants like Cognizant add irreplaceable value.

If artificial intelligence was truly destroying the IT services sector, the entry-level hiring numbers would reflect an absolute freeze. Yet, the ground reality tells a completely different story of growth and adaptation.

Cognizant currently generates about 30% of its code through artificial intelligence and aggressively aims to push that number to 50%. Despite this massive leap in automated productivity, the company is not retreating from human talent. During a recent earnings call, Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S confirmed that the company successfully hired 25,000 fresh graduates in 2025. Even more promisingly, the tech giant expects to comfortably exceed that hiring target in 2026.

A Shared Industry Confidence : Cognizant is not alone in its highly optimistic outlook. Across the Indian IT sector, major players are viewing the AI revolution as a lucrative catalyst rather than a fatal disruptor. Rivals like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro have consistently maintained that the global rush toward rapid AI adoption will ultimately boost the demand for software service providers.

Almost all of Cognizant’s major clients have experimented with AI agents independently, only to quickly realize that they still need dedicated IT partners to securely deploy these tools and achieve a tangible return on investment.

Ultimately, the market narrative is shifting. Artificial intelligence is not here to replace the massive IT services industry; it is the exact tool that will drive its next massive wave of global expansion.