Beyond Adoption: AI-Driven Outcomes Become Internal Benchmark For Indian IT Giants

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is doubling down on AI which also includes how its own employees use this technology. In an internal memo, the California-headquartered tech giant’s head of people Janelle Gale said that employees would now be assessed on how they use AI to deliver results and improve productivity, found in a November 2025 reportby Business Insider.

Google aka Alphabet has gone a step further and informed its non-technical employees that their use of AI tools will be considered in their performance reviews. They have been handed weekly quotas on AI tools usage, as well, the publication reported.

This is in stark contrast to what happened post the launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI in November 2022 where companies like Amazon, Apple, Walmart, and others placed strict restrictions on use of AI tools by their employees. The shift reflects how AI has moved from being viewed as a potential risk to becoming an integral part of workplace productivity. Indian technology companies are now beginning to follow a similar path.

The Age Of AI

While many firms build AI-powered tools for customers, less is understood about how deeply they are using AI internally. Across several Indian tech firms, AI is steadily becoming embedded in everyday workflows: from writing code and analysing customer data to drafting documents and responding to support tickets. The overwhelming majority of people we spoke to believe AI is a necessity and essential for employees.

While few companies have formal quotas like Google’s, many are actively encouraging employees to incorporate AI tools into their work and measuring the impact on productivity. This is just a matter of time and maturity. As AI models improve, their use will be more strictly mandated across the Indian technology services and SaaS ecosystem.

Today, AI adoption is moving beyond productivity tools into core product development and delivery processes, including coding copilots, automated testing, and AI-driven IT service management. In SaaS companies, AI is increasingly embedded within platforms to enable predictive analytics, intelligent workflows, and personalised customer experiences, said Sanjeev Narsipur, managing director of consulting firm Alvarez and Marsal India.

Meanwhile, marketing teams and startups are seeing measurable gains, such as improved customer acquisition efficiency, while global capability centres in India are emerging as hubs for AI innovation in areas like cybersecurity, analytics, and enterprise automation.

Zoho Corp-owned ManageEngine has initiated a strong internal push for AI adoption across teams. “Earlier, whenever we wanted to do something new, the first question was: Do we need to hire more people? Now, the first question is: Can this be done using AI tools?” Rakesh Jayaprakash, product head and chief analytics evangelist, ManageEngine, told Inc42.

Notably, parent company Zoho Corp is the largest customer of its own AI framework Zia. Internal releases are conducted to test performance at scale before broader rollouts. Implementation at this scale significantly improves product quality and reliability.

Similar is the case at SaaS unicorn Whatfix, where AI is embedded across functions including engineering, product, design, sales, and customer support, where teams use tools such as Claude and GPT-based systems for tasks ranging from software development and customer analytics to campaign creation and personalised outreach.

The Bengaluru-headquartered company also deploys its own platform, Whatfix AI, internally to analyse user behaviour, improve support resolution, and refine product capabilities based on real-world usage.

“We track adoption through usage metrics and business impact indicators,” Subhadeep Guin, head of engineering at Whatfix, told Inc42.

This includes monitoring tool usage, measuring improvements in development velocity and ticket resolution time, evaluating campaign turnaround time, and assessing quality gains in documentation and customer communication.

At media SaaS company Amagi, AI usage monitoring is more granular. Managers track indicators such as the percentage of code generated using AI and improvements in time-to-completion for development tasks.

“We were explicit about direction. AI adoption is not optional or experimental for us, it is a strategic priority. We communicated clearly that the organisation is evolving toward AI-enabled workflows, and that adaptability is part of our culture. In practical terms, that means setting expectations: employees must be willing to evolve their skill sets,” said Srividhya Srinivasan CTO Co-founder Amagi.

Job Security On Top Of Employees’ Minds

Even as companies formalise how AI usage is evaluated at work, concerns among employees persist about the eventual automation of their roles. A studyby recruitment agency Randstad’s Workmonitor showed that job vacancies requiring AI agent skills have grown by 1,587%.

The report also says four in five surveyed workers are concerned about AI impacting their daily tasks at the workplace, with Gen Z (born between 1997-2012) among those most concerned as companies increasingly rely on AI chatbots and automation.

Companies that Inc42 spoke with claim that they have taken cognisance of the widespread anxiety around AI usage and job role relevancy among their employees.

“At Zaggle we position AI as an augmentation tool rather than a replacement for talent. The focus is on helping teams eliminate repetitive tasks and spend more time on strategic and creative work. Continuous communication, hands-on exposure and visible productivity improvements help address initial skepticism and build confidence in AI adoption,” said Avinash Godkhindi, MD and CEO Zaggle.

Whatfix’s Guin added that the company prioritises ‘enablement over enforcement’. The company offers certifications, playbooks, peer-led knowledge-sharing sessions, and real use case demonstrations to build confidence and clarity. Clear guidelines on responsible AI use and data privacy are also issued.

Beyond seeing it as a threat to job security, employees might also push back on increased use of AI due to trust and the technology’s actual capabilities in making the work at hand easier.

Across online developer forums, programmers have reported growing pressure from companies to use AI tools even for routine tasks such as writing small code snippets. While these tools can accelerate code generation, they often increase the time spent validating outputs, a burden the industry has begun referring to as a ‘verification tax’. In many cases, the problem is not outright errors or hallucinations, but generic code that passes basic checks yet adds little real value.

“There are concerns about trusting the output of the AI, especially when it comes to coding, finance, or customer interactions. Finally, it is the ease of use. If the employees do not find it convenient to use the AI, they might think it is extra work, rather than a productivity booster,” said Devroop Dhar, cofounder of consultancy firm Primus Partners.

All said, despite widespread optimism around AI, investments remain modest in scale. More than 95% of organisations allocate less than 20% of their IT budgets to AI, and only 4% have crossed the 20% threshold, showed an EY-CII reportin November 2025. The contrast suggests that while belief in AI’s potential is high, funding for truly scaled, enterprise-wide transformation remains cautious, raising questions about whether internal adoption is keeping pace with ambition.

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