How Automation Transforms Service Delivery

This is my first time building a services company. In the past, my co-founder and I only built product companies. Product companies are infinitely scalable theoretically and VC fund-able, while services companies are not. And being honest, it's more fun to work on a product than a service. However, with AI, this has completely changed. There is a huge demand for services at the moment, so the real challenge is, how do you build an effective IT services company in the age of AI? Delivering services is messy and a lot of unscalable hard work. Think about it like this: You need to bring founder level energy to every project to be effective and deep dive into the details for every new client (and do this over and over and over again). So how do you solve this? The answer is, leveraging AI and LLMs to streamline the service delivery process. What do I mean by this? Implementing LLMs and Agents internally to help go from AI automation idea to SOW all the way to technical tickets being scoped out for engineers to work on. Here is what our current requirements gathering process looks like, using LLMs and AI Agents (this would’ve taken weeks and hours of meetings): 1. Clients interact with our conversational agent to explain their problem, workflow, and goals (Think of this as your technical project manager deep dive) 2. The agent translates this into a draft proposal with potential AI automation plans & options 3. Our team reviews, adjusts for budget + timeline, and turns it into a polished SOW 4. Client reviews the plans → approves the plans → we move to finalized SOW 5. From there, we auto-generate tickets in our project management system so engineers and PMs can execute immediately Clients go from idea to signed proposal + scoped plan in days. We still keep humans in the loop for quality and nuance. To me, this is a small but important breakthrough. One of the best applications of AI / LLMs is improving how IT projects & services are delivered, where the AI does the heavy lifting around requirements gathering, scoping and finalized planning. What scared me away from services before (i.e. the upfront grind) is now the part I actually look forward to. I can see this pattern applying to any services-like business, not just IT services delivery (think Legal / Accounting etc.).

The Great Rewriting of Professional Services If there’s one shift that’s still flying under the radar, it’s this: AI is not just automating workflows—it’s reshaping the very structure of the services economy. Two sharp signals this week made that impossible to ignore: 🔹 Greg Isenberg’s “What’s Keeping Me Up At Night” 🔹 Ethan Batraski’s The Great Legacy Extinction They both point to a profound shift already underway. The next wave of consulting, healthcare, legal, and audit services will not look like firms. They will be built like software products—domain-specific, always-on, and radically scalable. 💡 What stands out: 🔹 Services are scaling like SaaS. AI-native firms are doing more with less—replacing labor scale with intelligent systems, delivering with speed and precision. 🔹 Trust and relationships are the new moat. In a world of commoditized tech, expertise and empathy still differentiate. Knowing your customer’s world matters more than ever. 🔹 Middle layers are where the action is. The real opportunity is not in building models—but in applying them with deep industry context. That’s where value and defensibility live. 🔹 The Comet Theory is real. Tech moves fast. Businesses adapt slowly. That gap is now the launchpad for AI-native service models. And in Healthcare? Hippocratic AI may be to healthcare what Palantir was to Defense—redefining how essential services are delivered. Their agent-based model brings empathy and efficiency to low-risk, high-volume interactions—from chronic care to post-discharge to emergency outreach. Rigorously tested by 7,000+ clinicians, it reflects what’s possible when safety, scale, and specificity come together. The bottom line? We are not just tweaking service delivery. We are rewriting the playbook. AI is not just changing how services are delivered. It is changing who gets to deliver them. Additional Reading 🧠 Greg Isenberg – What’s Keeping Me Up At Night ✍️ Ethan Batraski – The Great Legacy Extinction 🏥 Hippocratic AI – FierceHealthcare Coverage

Last week, we launched the EY-nasscom report: From (AI)deation to Impact - a seminal study on architecting an AI-first tech services workforce. The research analyzed over 1,000 tasks across IT and BPM, revealing that AI-driven transformation can deliver up to 40% value uplift in IT services and up to 80% in BPM firms. The launch was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Anurag Malik, featuring insights from Neha Sharma and eminent industry leaders Ritesh Idnani (CEO, Firstsource), Sandeep Kalra (CEO, Persistent Systems), and Satish H.C. (EVP & CDO, Infosys). Here are the key takeaways: 🔹 The sector is in flux Clients expect more for less. Revenue is decoupling from headcount, and commercial models are shifting from effort-based to outcome-based. Labor arbitrage is being replaced by innovation arbitrage. As revenue deflates, firms are capping headcount growth. 🔹 The competitive landscape is flattening Scale and incumbency are no longer guaranteed advantages - and may even become liabilities. This is the moment for every company to rewrite its playbook. 🔹 New growth vectors are emerging Clients expect thought leadership from partners to reimagine their businesses with AI at the core. Service providers have an opportunity to shape new deals by unlocking investment capital that enables clients to embark on transformation journeys. 🔹 Relevance hinges on productization of services Build platforms, tools, and reusable IP that accelerate AI adoption, moving beyond the traditional people or capabilities play. Create domain depth to deliver AI for tech and AI for business. Skill density is a critical currency. 🔹 It’s time to re-architect work Disrupt the traditional people pyramid. Disaggregate and reassemble roles. Build fluid systems of intelligence with employees, AI agents, gig workers, and ecosystem partners - assembled as agile talent networks to deliver specific bodies of work. 🔹 From billing time to underwriting outcomes Rethink the delivery value chain. Break down every supported process into atomic tasks and reimagine them with human + AI pods. This isn’t a cost proposition; it’s a value maximization play. 🔹 Blueprint for success Winners will be those who dismantle legacy constructs and rebuild with AI at the core, creating strategic moats and unlocking new revenue pools. While human-AI collaboration will disrupt existing roles, it will also create new jobs across both tech and non-tech domains. A big thank you to the distinguished leaders who participated in the panel discussion, and to the tech stalwarts who shared their powerful insights in the report: Ravi Kumar S (CEO, Cognizant), Amit Chadha (CEO, L&T Technology Services) and Sudhir Singh (CEO, Coforge). Report link: https://lnkd.in/gRz4irdu Rajesh Nambiar Sangeeta Gupta Namita Jain Vidya Mohan Divya Chandrasekhar Sundeep Rajasekaran Sachin Tyagi Ruchi Chawla #IT #BPO #AI #FutureOfWork

Shift from Bums on Seats to Value in BPO. Having spent 25 years in the BPO industry, I’ve witnessed a fundamental transformation in how services are delivered and priced, moving away from traditional headcount-based models toward outcome-driven partnerships. Why the Old Model is Failing The “bums on seats” approach creates misaligned incentives. Providers profit from inefficiency, billing for time and headcount rather than results. Clients pay for effort without clear visibility into business impact, often funding bloated teams with little motivation to improve. The New Value Paradigm Modern BPO relationships focus on business outcomes: ∙ Outcome-based pricing – Pay for results like customer satisfaction scores, accuracy rates, or cost savings rather than agent hours ∙ Gain-sharing models – Both parties benefit when providers drive performance beyond baseline expectations ∙ Hybrid structures – Reduced fixed fees combined with performance bonuses align interests while maintaining predictability What’s Enabling This Shift ∙ Automation and AI – RPA, intelligent automation, and generative AI deliver more value with fewer people ∙ Advanced analytics – Sophisticated performance management makes outcome measurement possible ∙ Technology platforms – Providers invest in proprietary capabilities that drive continuous improvement The Impact For providers: The shift requires repositioning from labor suppliers to strategic transformation partners, with heavy investment in technology and industry expertise. For buyers: Opportunities for better business outcomes, but demands stronger governance, clearer strategy, and more sophisticated vendor management. The Bottom Line The fundamental question is changing from “how cheaply can we get this done?” to “how can an external partner help us perform this function better than we could ourselves?” Value creation is replacing cost arbitrage as BPO’s primary proposition.

“At Mayo Clinic, we’ve transcended manual workflows to embrace automation, ambient AI, and robotics—unlocking smarter, more responsive care.” — Biju Samkutty “By bridging clinical expertise and technological proficiency, and ensuring continuous upskilling, we’re augmenting support for our staff and the care we deliver to our patients.” — Maneesh Goyal Healthcare’s future is not just about technology—it’s about people. Intelligent automation is: Giving back time to clinicians by reducing documentation burdens, so they can focus more on meaningful patient interactions. Supporting staff well-being by simplifying repetitive workflows, reducing fatigue, and elevating job satisfaction. Enhancing patient safety and experience with robotics and AI tools that bring precision, efficiency, and reliability to care delivery. These aren’t isolated wins—they represent a cultural shift where technology serves people, not the other way around. 👉 How is your organization leveraging intelligent automation to transform staff and patient experiences? Mayo Clinic Mayo Clinic Platform

💡 A business model shift is happening in enterprise services. Traditional BPOs aren't just facing a technology opportunity - they're positioned to lead a fundamental transformation that AI can accelerate. When organizations deploy AI agents, they initially focus on cost savings and 24/7 availability. But the real opportunity is far more strategic. AI agents don't just automate tasks - they eliminate service delivery challenges that plague BPOs: context gaps between teams, knowledge loss during handoffs, and inconsistent decision-making across regions. Think about it. Service organizations have deep expertise in understanding and solving complex business problems. The entire infrastructure, from training to quality control, is built on years of knowledge and experience. The next evolution is about amplifying this expertise. Here's where it gets interesting: AI agents don't just work faster - they fundamentally reshape how knowledge flows through an organization. They retain context across interactions. Every interaction builds institutional memory. Every decision reinforces consistent enterprise standards. They operate across different systems. Most importantly, they learn and improve processes proactively, not reactively. The most successful transformations don't just digitize existing workflows but they reimagine the entire operating model: the question isn't "how do we make our customer support more efficient?" but "what becomes possible when we augment human expertise with AI-native workflows?" The next wave of enterprise services won't be built around managing people, but on scalable intelligence - moving from human decision points to AI-native workflows. 🎯 That's a business model revolution, not an efficiency play. #EnterpriseAI #DigitalTransformation #FutureOfWork

🌍 AI is Grounding Itself in ITSM and It’s Changing the Game For years, ITSM (IT Service Management) has carried a reputation: structured, process-heavy, sometimes rigid. We’ve all experienced it ;endless tickets, delayed SLAs, knowledge base articles that don’t quite answer the problem. IT teams were firefighting, and employees often felt stuck waiting. But something has shifted. AI is no longer a buzzword in ITSM,it’s becoming the foundation of how service is delivered. And the impact is huge. Here’s where I see AI making the difference: ✨ From Reactive to Predictive Instead of waiting for systems to fail, AI is spotting early warning signs—flagging performance issues and preventing outages before users even notice. ✨ From Manual Fixes to Self-Healing AI bots are no longer just routing tickets—they’re applying patches, restarting services, resetting credentials, and quietly keeping systems running in the background. ✨ From Clunky Portals to Conversational Service Desks Nobody enjoys filling out IT forms. AI-powered virtual agents, especially in tools like ServiceNow, now provide real, human-like conversations that resolve most issues instantly. ✨ From Static Knowledge to Dynamic Answers Forget long KB articles. Generative AI can create tailored solutions based on context—helping users faster and reducing ticket volume. ✨ From Cost Center to Value Driver When AI takes care of repetitive work, IT teams are freed up to focus on innovation, security, and digital transformation—becoming strategic enablers for the business. 🚀 What excites me most? This evolution isn’t about replacing IT teams,it’s about empowering them. AI is grounding ITSM not as a back-office process, but as a driver of business resilience and growth. The question isn’t if AI will transform ITSM. It’s how quickly leaders will embrace it. 👉 My take: The organizations that lean into AI-driven ITSM today will define the digital workplace standards of tomorrow. Do you see AI as a true partner in ITSM or just another hype cycle? I’d love to hear your thoughts. #AI #ITSM #ServiceNow #Automation #DigitalTransformation #FutureOfWork #EnterpriseIT

AI Is Reshaping the IT Services Industry—And DXC Is Leading the Charge   Traditionally, the IT services industry has thrived by leveraging human capital to deliver scalable solutions and sustained value to clients. The rise of globally integrated enterprises was fueled by exceptional talent and differentiated economic models—creating millions of jobs worldwide. Over time, successive waves of automation were introduced to boost productivity and reduce costs. Yet, the impact remained largely incremental—evolutionary, not revolutionary.   Today, however, we’re witnessing a fundamental shift. Economic headwinds, a growing shortage of skilled talent, and relentless cost pressures are accelerating disruption across the industry. At the center of this transformation is Artificial Intelligence (AI)—redefining how IT services organizations operate, innovate, and compete.   AI is no longer confined to labs or pilot programs. It’s being deployed at scale to augment every persona across the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). By automating repetitive tasks and enabling intelligent decision-making, AI empowers teams to focus on strategy, governance, problem-solving, and innovation. It’s assisting security operations centers, with Agentic Agents handling over 80% of the work, at a higher quality and with a dramatic response time improvement.   Back in 2011, Marc Andreessen famously said, “Software is eating the world.” Today, AI is the next chapter in that story. In the 2000s, IT services firms focused on optimizing the 'P' in the P × Q pricing model—average blended rate. Now, AI is reshaping the equation by dramatically reducing the 'Q'—the quantity of human effort required. In fact, productivity gains of up to 40% are being realized across the SDLC and SOC to name a few areas we are already in production at scale on.   DXC is at the forefront of this transformation, powered by: -DXC-Converge: Our agentic platform streamlining and automating the SDLC. -Strategic partner investments: Platforms like ServiceNow, SAP, and 7AI are deepening their agentic capabilities. We are at the forefront of extending their reach. -Boomi partnership: Delivering market-leading integration, API management, data management, and agent orchestration in a unique iPaaS environment. -Robust security and governance frameworks: Ensuring enterprise-grade compliance and resilience. -A highly credentialed workforce: Recognized by Gartner, ISG, and Everest Group for deep expertise and extensive training.   As the digital landscape evolves, it’s imperative that we help our enterprise clients stay ahead—enhancing quality, reducing time-to-market, and driving measurable ROI. Winning on both the P and the Q.