MUMBAI — Top executives from India’s largest tech firms pushed back against hype that AI agents will kill off traditional SaaS models. Speaking at the AI Impact Summit 2026, they argued that the shift demands deep enterprise expertise, not just flashy code generation.

Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairperson and CEO of Salesforce India, dismissed market rumors as unreliable. “Markets will say a lot of things, and not all of it comes true,” she told attendees during a panel session. She broke down SaaS success into core elements: understanding workflows, spotting customer pain points, and delivering solutions with observability, governance, auditability, and strong adoption rates. Ways of working may change, Bhattacharya added, but lasting success turns on real customer value.

Tata Consultancy Services CEO K. Krithivasan described a pivot in software engineering roles. Engineers now focus on high-level architecture and strict validation, he said. AI offers huge productivity boosts, yet enterprise rollouts need heavy lifting—data cleanup, app updates, and more. “We don’t envision a shrinking of the sector, but rather a massive explosion in the volume of what can be produced and the complexity of the problems we can solve,” Krithivasan said.

Infosys CEO Salil Parekh put a number on the shift: $300 billion in new services opportunities. AI makes the previously impossible affordable, he explained. Infosys platforms let companies blend foundation models with targeted agents, generating concrete business gains, according to Parekh.

HCL Technologies CEO and Managing Director C. Vijayakumar highlighted gaps in current tech. Large language models and foundation models fall short for most enterprise needs, he said. A divide remains between raw AI power and the reliability businesses demand.

The CEOs agreed on one point: AI agents demand a rethink of operations and business strategies. Agility matters. So does readiness for enterprise-scale deployment, smart orchestration, and relentless focus on customer challenges in tangled digital environments. No quick obsolescence looms for SaaS. Instead, adaptation rules the day.

Bhattacharya’s comments echoed broader industry caution. Salesforce, with its deep roots in cloud services, sees AI as an enhancer, not a replacer. TCS, a giant in IT consulting, eyes explosive growth. Infosys bets on integration tools. HCL flags the tech maturity gap.

Summit organizers drew over 1,000 attendees to Mumbai for two days of talks on AI’s business fallout. Panels covered everything from agentic workflows to regulatory hurdles. Executives fielded questions on job shifts and investment flows. Optimism ran high, tempered by calls for measured steps.

Krithivasan pointed to TCS’s own playbook: rationalizing data troves and modernizing legacy systems before AI deployment. Parekh touted Infosys’ ‘orchestration platforms’ as the glue binding models to real work. Vijayakumar urged patience; enterprise-grade AI isn’t plug-and-play yet.

The session underscored a unified stance. AI reshapes. It doesn’t dismantle. Companies that nail customer-centric evolution will thrive amid the change.