AI's Economic Potential Hindered by Slow Adoption, Cognizant CEO Says

The rapid progress of artificial intelligence is presenting a significant economic opportunity, yet businesses are struggling to translate AI's capabilities into tangible value, according to Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar.

Kumar notes that frontier AI models are improving at an unprecedented pace, clearing benchmarks that were once considered distant goals. He estimates that 93% of U.S. jobs are already exposed to potential changes driven by AI, a level previously projected for 2032. Despite the multiplied raw capability available to companies, the proportion of organizations successfully converting this into value has seen minimal growth.

This disparity, which Kumar terms the "AI velocity gap," is the widening chasm between the speed of AI model advancement and the slower adaptation of skills, organizational structures, and governance. Closing this gap represents a substantial growth opportunity, estimated to be in the trillions of dollars, not only for the IT services sector but for the broader economy.

The core opportunity lies in two main areas. The first involves tasks that companies already fund but can now be performed in entirely new ways. This includes modernizing systems, writing software, and managing operations with AI and agents working alongside human employees. This approach, described as "old work, reinvented," is inherently deflationary.

AI compresses the time and cost associated with work that the IT industry has billed for decades. However, this compression enables the delivery of greater value more rapidly than ever before. At Cognizant, nearly 40% of code is now generated with machine assistance, allowing teams to focus on higher-value tasks that clients prioritize.