Evolution Of Agentic Web Is a Big Shift & Infosys Is Working On it: Rafee Tarafdar In FY26, Tarafdar has a plan of action for IT major Infosys to achieve major milestones

Technology evolution comes in waves. Each wave has distinct characteristics which reshape how we live, work, and connect. From Alan Turing, the Mathematician and computer scientist's seminal question in the 1950s, "Can machines think?" to the various application of artificial intelligence (AI) in augmenting human productivity; technology has witnessed many phases: digital, Cloud and AI. IT major Infosys is on a journey of becoming AI-first, and Rafee Tarafdar is the torch bearer. In an exclusive interaction with Entrepreneur India, Tarafdar shares his plan of action to achieve major milestones in FY26.

He has been scaling Infosys through the three evolutionary phases and believes only the nature of technology has changed, most of the patterns are still the same. "We can actually take a lot of learnings from digital and Cloud into the AI era. Fundamentally, I think a lot of learning and a lot of patterns are more or less the same. It's just that the pace and nature of tech has changed," Rafee Tarafdar, CTO, Infosys told Entrepreneur India.

The CTO expects AI will increasingly be embedded into every area of work. Infosys Topaz is an AI-first suite of services, solutions, and platforms launched by Infosys to help businesses accelerate their transformation and growth by leveraging generative AI technologies. It's been a couple of years since the launch of Topaz, and Tarafdar is confident about its growth in the future.

"In the past two years, we have reimagined our services to make sure that AI is integrated into all the services and IPs which we offer to our clients," he said. The company has massively trained its employees to be AI aware, with more than 270,000 of its people trained to use AI tools for application and scale. From reimagining its services, building small language models (SLMs), having a responsible AI team to building a trusted AI partnership portfolio, the company has traversed a long way.

With two decades of experience at Infosys, and having witnessed the company grow through different waves, the CTO emphasized, "The evolution period has shrunk from digital to Cloud to AI. What we used to see in about six to seven years is now shrinking to about two to three years. This means we need to react and respond much faster."

He shares his plans for the tech giant in FY 2026.

What's Ahead In FY26?

The AI models, at least at this point, seem to be fairly mature and standardized, so the action is shifting towards applications. One of the relevant areas for the IT giant is moving towards the agentic web. "Agentic web will be one area of evolution, where today, everything is still largely driven by websites. How the web itself will evolve to support agents and drive a lot more semi-autonomous operations, will be one big shift that I'm expecting. Going beyond the APIs that are there today to having these agents inter-operate to complete a process, still requires a lot of work, but I think that's the direction we are seeing," he said.

The Agentic Web is the next evolutionary stage of the Internet, characterized by autonomous AI agents that proactively perform tasks and collaborate with other agents on users' behalf, rather than requiring direct commands.

Talking about the other focus areas, he said, "The world model will become another area of key importance. Furthermore, a lot of synthetic data is required in businesses in order to build some of the AI applications, because most organizations may not have enough data. So, how you use techniques to create synthetic data to solve your business problems will be an area of focus."

Additionally, the company is bullish about AI convergence. AI convergence describes the merging of AI with other transformative technologies and concepts, such as immersive virtual environments, IoT devices, blockchain, and quantum computing, to create new, enhanced functionalities and experiences.

The company is bullish about AI driving better cybersecurity, convergence with AR, VR and Metaverse, "AI convergence will be used to create new algorithmic user experiences. AI convergence with AR, VR, and the Metaverse, which didn't pick up earlier, is the next frontier to watch. These will essentially help create 3D models, games and others, which will be used to drive the next line of growth. The AI convergence era is where I see a lot more happening going forward, in addition to the developments on the application side through agentic AI," he added.

Working on the FOMO Factor

Infosys trains employees in AI through a tailored, three-tiered program (AI-Aware, Builders, Masters) using its Lex platform and partnerships.The company integrates AI modules into foundational and role-specific training, partners with tech giants and offers immersive metaverse learning.

"Talent transformation is ongoing, but one of the learnings for us has been that you can't just expect things to change by giving people an AI tool. It has to result in changes in ways of working. That's the other area of focus for us, to create these new playbooks and new ways of working in applying AI in day-to-day work," he said, adding that at Infosys, employees are afraid that if they don't learn AI then they will miss out on something.

"So generally, there is a big FOMO effect where everybody comes in and says, I want to get enabled, equipped. I want to try out more things. Besides, we are bringing a lot of experts from outside to help start thinking about what's next. We have to have a window period of 12 to 36 months and start preparing and planning for the next wave. It is where a lot of the council comes and provides inputs," he quipped.

Infosys plans to hire 20,000 fresh graduates in the financial year 2025-26 (FY26) to support its growth and focus on AI and digital innovation. "A lot of new hires are for new roles and deeper engineering portfolios. On one hand, we are hiring a lot of people in core AI and secondly, we are hiring in deep-tech engineering. This could be in Cloud, digital, and in AI itself, so that we are able to bring the power of AI to Cloud and digital work. There are also new opportunities in niche areas such as responsible AI," he explained.

Nasscom anticipates more layoffs across the IT services industry in the near term. The report by Nasscom said India's IT sector is at a turning point, with job cuts likely as AI and automation reshape services.

"With every new technology that comes in, there is always some level of automation. So we are focused on identifying roles where the level of automation is higher, and then upskill employees, so they move up the hierarchy. And as new roles and skills are required, we constantly evaluate and reskill, because that is our strength as a company," he concluded.

Tarafdar believes as part of Infosys's AI-first strategy, moving up the stack, evolutions will happen and the company will adapt and innovate.