TCS Plans To Add Up To 8,900 AI Deployment Engineers, Eyes AI And Cybersecurity Acquisitions

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is taking a more aggressive stance on artificial intelligence (AI), building out a dedicated team of up to 8,900 forward-deployed engineers (FDEs) and opening the door to acquisitions after years of relying almost entirely on organic growth.

Two senior TCS executives shared the details, outlining a strategy that positions AI as an opportunity for the company rather than a threat to its business model.

The Forward-Deployed Engineer Push

TCS's CEO K Kritivasan said the company is aiming for between 1% and 1.5% of its total workforce to serve as forward-deployed engineers, a category of staff who embed directly with clients to accelerate AI adoption and customise tools to specific business environments. Based on the company's headcount at end-June, that translates to roughly 5,900 to 8,900 employees. Whether these will be hired externally or developed from within the existing workforce has not been specified.

The role has become increasingly competitive. TCS will be going up against OpenAI, Anthropic and Microsoft, all of which have been hiring forward-deployed engineers to help enterprise clients put AI tools to work at scale.

Acquisitions Back On The Agenda

The company is also scanning for acquisition targets in AI, data security and cybersecurity. This marks a shift for TCS, which has historically grown organically and avoided acquisitions until late 2025.

The CFO Samir Seksaria said the focus is on finding assets that strengthen or enhance the company's strategic positioning, rather than acquisitions for scale.

The AI Disruption Question

Investor anxiety around AI's potential to shrink demand for information technology (IT) services has been a persistent theme for the sector. TCS's CEO pushed back on this directly, arguing that integrating AI into complex enterprise environments still requires deep knowledge of client systems, sector-specific expertise and a large skilled workforce, none of which AI models provide on their own. Companies increasingly use multiple AI models simultaneously and need partners to connect those with existing infrastructure and manage data flows.

Despite this confidence, TCS's own AI revenue growth slowed to 13% on an annualised basis in the first quarter, down from 28% the previous quarter. The CEO acknowledged the trajectory would not be linear but said the long-term target remains around 25% quarter-on-quarter growth in the AI business.

TCS currently spends approximately $1 billion annually on internal talent development and making AI accessible across the organisation.

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