OpenAI officially enters services with Deployment Company, should Indian IT giants worry?

OpenAI is entering the world of services with the new OpenAI Deployment Company. But what does this mean for Indian IT giants like Infosys and TCS? Let's take a look.

In Short

• OpenAI launches Deployment Company, a service firm for AI
• OpenAI says DeployCo will help bring AI tools to businesses
• This could be a worry for Indian IT companies like Infosys, TCS

OpenAI has now officially entered the services industry with the OpenAI Deployment Company or DeployCo. This new venture is designed to help organisations build and deploy AI systems across their networks for work. That is, OpenAI wants clients to use DeployCo to customise the AI tools they want to use.

As per the AI startup, the OpenAI Deployment Company has received over $4 billion in investment from the likes of Goldman Sachs and SoftBank. Though DeployCo is “majority-owned and controlled by OpenAI.”

OpenAI President Greg Brockman stated that a key part of DeployCo are “150 Forward Deployed Engineers and Deployment Specialists.” These Forward Deployed Engineers (FDE) serve a new role in the world of AI – helping clients use AI tools across their systems.

That is FDEs will work with clients and businesses to understand how AI tools can be used based on specific needs. You can think of DeployCo as a new service company that does something similar to what we have seen from the Indian IT sector, but specifically for AI tools. That is, a business can contact this new company to deploy AI tools in its systems, and the FDEs do the rest.

OpenAI states that it is working with 19 major companies, including investment firms, consultancies – such as Capgemini, McKinsey & Company – and system integrators to ensure that clients can easily use AI tools via the OpenAI Deployment Company.

Fresh AI worry for TCS, Infosys and others?

On the surface, this could raise concerns when it comes to the Indian IT sector, which relies primarily on SaaS – Software as a Service. You may think that OpenAI wants to bypass firms like Infosys or Wipro, and instead, deploy its tools by its own company.

While this could be worrisome when you consider previous SaaSpocalypse fears due to AI tools like Claude Cowork, but as India Today Tech reported a few days ago, this could also be a blessing in disguise for the Indian IT sector.

According to Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box – an American cloud company , AI may bring a similar wave of transformation that we have seen in the past. He wrote on X, “Moving from analog to digital led to a massive wave in the 90s. Moving from on-prem to cloud did the same in the 2000s. But this is going to be at a scale far greater than the others.”

He stated that AI agents will change the way a business runs by just changing the medium of running services – think changing from on-premise services to cloud.

Levie added that the way AI agents are deployed across businesses will be different too. He wrote, “Every industry will have its own variants, and every department within those industries will have variants as well.”

This is where SaaS companies like TCS or Infosys may have an advantage. These companies have worked on customising tech for clients for decades now. While OpenAI or Anthropic – another AI company starting a venture firm – will likely have the advantage when it comes to the AI technology itself, the market may be large enough for the Indian IT sector to get a share of the pie.

Companies like Infosys and TCS have already landed deals with the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI to do exactly this. And to give you some context on how large the AI market could be – OpenAI alone has over one million businesses that use its products and APIs.

Levie reflected upon this opportunity. He wrote, “[There] is an insane amount of technical and domain-specific process work to be done to make this all happen. Huge opportunity for new service providers to help drive this change.”

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