Surya Gummadi on AI investment
From Cognizant Americas' Surya Gummadi, President & Jatin Dala, CFO At DAVOS 2026 | Exclusive · · CNBC-TV18
“We were the first to invest with Anthropic in creating a go-to-market partnership. We were the first to speak about a billion dollar investment in AI.”
On , Surya Gummadi, President of Americas at Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp, spoke about AI investment during Cognizant Americas' Surya Gummadi, President & Jatin Dala, CFO At DAVOS 2026 | Exclusive on CNBC-TV18.
About Surya Gummadi
Surya Gummadi, President of Americas at Cognizant, has been a prominent voice on the company's AI strategy, particularly at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2025 and 2026. He has described Cognizant's approach to AI as a "three vector model," starting with helping clients unlock productivity, then industrializing and scaling AI, and finally building agentic AI systems. Gummadi stated that while AI agents could outnumber humans, humans must remain "in the loop" to manage trust and governance. He also noted that clients are beginning to push for outcome-based contracts and that Cognizant has structured large deals with gain-sharing arrangements. Gummadi has emphasized the importance of talent and reskilling, stating that Cognizant partnered with Google to train 200,000 employees in AI technologies)Skip. He has described AI as a "social equalizer" that will benefit less productive workers more, and argued that while some jobs will be eliminated, many more will be created. Regarding the business environment, Gummadi said in early 2026 that there was "definitely acceleration" in the US market as clients moved from experimentation to scaling AI, but noted that budgets would be finalized in February or March. He also discussed Cognizant's expansion into tier-2 cities in India to tap into new talent pools.