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It's impossible to talk about workforce innovation without addressing artificial intelligence.During a virtual roundtable, we asked Business Insider's <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/workforce-innovation-board-tackles-topics-such-as-c-suite-innovation-ai-worker-wellness-2024-8">Workforce Innovation board</a> to tell us how AI would transform companies over the next year.One major topic was reskilling and upskilling employees. BI's Tim Paradis, who focuses on the future of work, asked whether there were any fears that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vinod-khosla-universal-basic-income-ai-job-loss-2024-9">dire predictions of AI</a> outpacing human capabilities to learn, like those advanced in a recent article by Sun Microsystems cofounder <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.khoslaventures.com/ai-dystopia-or-utopia/">Vinod Khosla</a>, would prove true."The basic drivers of job creation will change with a technology that does not only augment human capabilities, but also may surpass them altogether," Khosla wrote, "leaving education and upskilling — a historical avenue for retraining and relevance — somewhat impotent."Board members rejected the grim prognostication."I disagree with that statement," said Justina Nixon-Saintil, IBM's vice president and chief impact officer, though she agreed that AI would exacerbate the digital divide."We made a commitment to scale 2 million people in AI by 2026," Nixon-Saintil said. "There's a sense of urgency in making sure we are not leaving people behind."AARP's Marjorie Powell argued that the global labor shortage was evidence of an enduring need for human workers but that no one can afford to be complacent. "You're going to have to relearn how to do your job," Powell said.Others described the importance of communicating clearly with workers about what AI means for their jobs now and in the future."We're trying to figure out how this transformation is going to occur," said Chris Deri, the president of the corporate advisory businesses at Weber Shandwick. "There has to be transparent communications and stakeholder engagement alongside figuring out these enterprise and strategic matters."The following has been edited for length and clarity.<h3 id="4a721470-9d79-4540-a871-62ad779b2870">How will the most innovative companies be transformed by AI over the next 12 months?</h3><h2 id="58f968af-3acb-493b-870e-b8d2bf021db1">Justina Nixon-Saintil, vice president and chief impact officer, IBM</h2><h3 id="a436d836-8481-4230-8a70-68bd3cfe6353">"Any tasks or jobs in the company that could be automated by AI will happen within the next year."</h3>A lot is going to change. Any tasks or jobs in the company that could be automated by AI will happen within the next year. For any jobs that cannot be automated, workers will need to understand how to work alongside AI.You need to understand what AI means for your role, how to use it to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-use-ai-save-time-work-best-ways-use-chatgpt-2024-9">increase productivity or efficiency</a>, and how to create new products and solutions leveraging AI. That's going to be the big shift, and here we actually continue to upskill our employees to prepare for that shift.Last year, we had an AI challenge across the company, and a huge percentage of our employees participated. They had to get training first, and then they were part of a team to come up with innovative solutions leveraging AI. We did it again this summer. So the company is very focused on how to upskill all employees, because it's going to impact every role in the company.<h2 id="82ccd740-f6d2-4536-8e3d-54d9f225dac0">Anant Adya, EVP, service offering head, and head of Americas delivery, Infosys</h2><h3 id="66cbaa75-725e-4e65-880c-285d5d102e74">"How can we eat our own dog food right before we start telling customers to adopt AI?"</h3>We have two objectives. One is to become an AI-first enterprise. The first task is to see how we can start using AI in everything we do, whether it's in our claims or travel expenses, procurement, or handling invoices.Our philosophy is very simple. AI is not about replacing an individual or replacing an employee but how we can amplify our productivity by using the tools. How can we eat our own dog food right before we start telling customers to adopt AI?Second is that for all the offerings that we have today, we want to make sure we infuse AI into them. When we go and talk to our customers about task-level automation, coding or developing an application, or migrating a workload into the cloud — how can we infuse AI into everything that we do? So it doesn't just become a people-based offering but a people-plus-AI-based offering.<h2 id="961badc0-cb06-4d47-9329-ac1f1b2d70dd">Marjorie Powell, chief HR officer and senior vice president, AARP</h2><h3 id="0aee923e-e647-43c9-bf57-4c2ecc03a872">"It's important that everyone learns how to deal with prompt engineering; we are not going to hire prompt engineers."</h3>We believe there's going to be a greater emphasis on <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-will-change-most-jobs-employers-help-workers-keep-up-2024-8">upskilling and reskilling</a> alongside AI technologies.It's important that everyone learns how to deal with prompt engineering; we are not going to hire prompt engineers. It's going to become a skill for employees to craft clear and specific prompts, adjust to the right audience, and utilize elements and problem-solving skills to identify inaccurate responses.It's about adaptability. Employees are going to have to be open to continuous learning and adapting to new AI tools and technologies in their jobs. So we make sure we're providing some kind of atmosphere and culture for being excited and energetic about learning.The workforce will have to problem-solve regardless of the tool and the technology, and it will require test-and-learn approaches. We created a "community of practice" in the company where individuals can join and help with peer learning and have a sandbox to play around with AI, depending on where they are.They can cross-pollinate across business-unit lines, and that has become very exciting. We also use that group to pilot the new technologies we're considering rolling out to the company.Data literacy is going to be very important — understanding how to read and interpret and tell a story of the data.We're also developing power users in the company, people who are really, really good at this that other employees can tap into when they need help.<h2 id="0ef1d87b-57f3-4474-bfdc-21c4f4fc1b74">Alicia Pittman, global people team chair, Boston Consulting Group</h2><h3 id="dd47519b-c973-4a00-b508-f05159afdea8">"Gen AI also offers an opportunity to avoid leakage of human capital, which obviously we all care quite a lot about."</h3>We have 35,000 employees, and north of 70% are active users of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-using-ai-bain-survey-roi-2024-6">generative AI</a> now. We've taken a full-company approach of upskilling and rolling out both custom and off-the-shelf tools, regardless of the job.The bottom-up innovation power of gen AI is super exciting. For example, our teams and employees have created more than a thousand custom GPTs, mini automation machines, to-do scripts, and dashboards to create bespoke analyses and build newsletters — it's super quick, and it doesn't require big investments or processes.That's one thing that's specific to gen AI versus other types of technology innovation — it's sparking a lot of energy and unlocking human capacity.Gen AI also offers an opportunity to avoid leakage of human capital, which obviously we all care quite a lot about. It really changes the game in terms of the amount of learning you can keep within the team and not lose as people move around.We're also seeing how gen AI is creating an exoskeleton for generalists to be able to take on more technical tasks. It's not going to turn a generalist analyst into an expert coder, but actually our analysis would show that they can get 80%-plus there on some coding tasks, which then you still need the expert coder to do quality control.<h2 id="d130e1cc-4600-48d2-941b-e5e5b1eddc1f">Maggie Hulce, chief revenue officer, Indeed</h2><h3 id="d4c2bf89-e522-4f0d-bbff-d8d4f916c1e1">"Do I have to build this huge team of AI engineers? The answer is no."</h3>We're trying to infuse AI in all our externally facing products and solutions to make them more insightful, intuitive, and delightful to use — and, in many ways, to create experiences that mimic what a personalized human experience might be like, but at scale.We also see most roles and workflows becoming augmented with AI. That's becoming more and more obvious as the months go on and as teams engage with AI and find applications and new ways of working.I was at Dreamforce recently in San Francisco. What Salesforce <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2024/09/17/google-autonomous-agent-partnership/">unveiled</a> was how it wants to help companies essentially launch AI agents in sales, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-is-using-generative-ai-to-streamline-business-relationships-2024-7">customer service</a>, marketing, and commerce.For many companies to get the full power of what AI can do, you have to be able to link up lots of different datasets that are usually in disparate places. It's hard work, and it's very time-consuming. To hear the stories of companies being like, "Guess what, you don't actually have to move that data around anymore," this is going to change how a lot of companies experiment and start to play with AI-oriented applications that will fundamentally change their operations.There are a lot of companies out there that have already started to light it up. We're thinking a lot about how sales, customer service, marketing, and product have operated for a long time in various silos. When you think about customer experiences, they really shouldn't be that way. They should be much more integrated than they are today. Some of these technologies can be part of the accelerants for how customer experiences can be reimagined.Part of what's been hard for people is like, "OK, but do I have to get all of these disparate parts of my company to all work together in a new way? Do I have to build this huge team of AI engineers?" The answer is no. You don't have to be the tip of the spear in terms of sophistication.<h2 id="8b49bd10-b04d-4857-afbc-b2979d5711e9">Kenon Chen, executive vice president of strategy and growth, Clear Capital</h2><h3 id="550eee1b-ffef-4a90-bbea-a94d7a6ba7a2">"As AI accelerates, you also have to accelerate the handling of data in a way that can produce accurate models."</h3>At Clear Capital, we participate in the highly regulated housing-finance industry. To enable AI to be used in accordance with our clients' expectations of governance and quality control, we've taken a three-pronged approach.First, we've been investing in creating good industry standards and working with the industry to ensure there's agreement on how AI models should be tested, how they ensure compliance with antidiscrimination and fairness practices, and how the data should be handled.Second, we've been investing a lot in higher-quality data. As AI accelerates, you also have to accelerate the handling of data in a way that can produce accurate models. So we've invested quite a bit in better digitization and generation of data.Third is fostering collaboration between innovators, industry players, policymakers, and regulators. We participated this year in the Federal Housing Finance Agency's generative-AI tech sprint, where about 80 leaders from different aspects of the housing industry brainstormed ways to apply generative AI to the lending process to improve borrowers' experience.One thing that became clear after participating in that was where we have more tools and more capabilities to accelerate. We always have to go back to the why: What is the mission? And we have to make the mission at the company level that much more clear so that as we apply these new tools, it's always for the sake of the mission.<h2 id="5e045b5f-3490-4435-8321-bab58740eaa8">Chris Deri, president, corporate advisory businesses, The Weber Shandwick Collective</h2><h3 id="79930c20-445b-4959-b644-53f07e252292">"There's a mega-trend need for all of us to adopt AI and understand it, but that means something different for different parts of our organization."</h3>We're a public-relations firm, so we're looking at AI for ourselves and for our clients.In terms of our own people, one lesson we've already learned is that there was an instinct to take a top-down approach, as in everybody's got to figure out how AI is going to change their business, but we need to take a bottom-up approach.In the simplest sense, we do consumer marketing, healthcare marketing, and corporate advisory work. We really need to design training for each of the different practitioner types.There's a mega-trend need for all of us to adopt AI and understand it, but that means something different for different parts of our organization.Another thing we're doing is creating a futuristic think-tank group in our company — three or four people who have been putting together an ecosystem to give us constant learning. We also have academic institutions, investors, technologists, and other practitioners to help.We're also looking at our business model and how we budget and scope. The classic assignment we get is companies call us and say, "We want to map our stakeholders and what their expectations are of us." That used to be a project that we would figure out with just consultant time. Now we're applying AI to do some of that.We need to figure out how to take advantage of those efficiencies to add new value — that human value. So we need to relook at our entire business and service model, and we haven't figured it all out yet.Anant talked about "eating your own dog food." We've mapped out the implementation of that stack for ourselves to test and learn, and then we will start to use that in how we show up as advisors to our clients on the same journey.<h2 id="3bf33684-0da6-43af-856a-e0d807c42725">Sharawn Tipton, chief people and culture officer, LiveRamp</h2><h3 id="2513253b-1145-4ac9-afad-cb752e1513d8">"What we're trying to do is really keep people at the center of this transformation."</h3>We're thinking a lot about the AI trust gap. I'm in San Francisco today, and I was walking around and I saw all these autonomous vehicles, and it dawned on me that my mother would never ride in one. She just does not trust that technology.As a data company, we're thinking a lot about how do we ensure that our customers, our clients, and our partners trust that we're going to protect their data and use AI when appropriate and be certain that we have safeguards for when it isn't appropriate. And then I think the biggest area that my team is focused on with this trust gap is job security and what this means for the average worker.So what we're trying to do is really keep people at the center of this transformation. We're thinking a lot about employee resource groups. That way we've been able to reach all different types of team members. So how do we target our ERGs and think about who are the slow adapters? Who are the folks that typically get left behind, and how do we give them a little extra push?What we want to do is think about how to continue to have our team members trust their leaders, but also trust AI and where we're going, and get them to understand this isn't about replacing jobs. We are really focused on transforming jobs. That is a huge shift and a huge opportunity for us.<h2 id="c0d7e4c7-96a5-41d7-8c3f-29dee443e291">Shane Koller, senior vice president and chief people officer, Ancestry</h2><h3 id="2fb41060-9718-4c06-940a-5ac8246457b5">"The more people we get thinking about governance, the better AI technology will be used."</h3>There are a lot of different points of view on what AI will and will not do and how quickly.I was reading an article in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend that said for every one person who believes that AI is going to replace everyone's jobs, there are three or four who think there's going to be this boom in AI and then it's going to settle down. And that the promise we think AI is going to deliver will probably take longer than we think to come to fruition.One of the things that we've been doing at Ancestry very intentionally is bringing up the subject of governance, because I think we all think of AI as this steamroller that's going to come and either we're going to step aside from it or we're going to get steamrolled.The more people we get thinking about governance, the better AI technology will be used. And I say that within Ancestry as well as within companies in general and within governments. We have more of a role to play in how this rolls out than we think.We've been building AI into our product for over 10 years now, and we've been giving more thought to how would we govern the use of AI within our own company so that we're not, for example, putting our customers' data at risk. We're very conscious that security and privacy is first and foremost in every discussion. It's really about how you govern such an amazing technology.

Leaders from BCG, Infosys, AARP, and more predict how AI will transform top companies in the next 12 months

<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=vishal+sikka">Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka’s</a> strategy helped India’s second largest software exporter to put up a brilliant show in the first quarter of fiscal 2016 and now the man is looking to turn future in his stride. 
 
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=infosys">Infosys</a> is creating a team of ‘<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=coding">supercoders</a>’ and has even revamped its <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=training+programme">training programme</a> in Mysuru to take on the challenge of futuristic and challenging projects. 
 
India’s $146 billion IT sector is going through a slowdown and Sikka is not getting bogged down and instead is looking at the future. 
 On the lines of Sikka’s ‘renew and new’ policy, <keyword id="6354512" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Infosys">Infosys</keyword> has identified 21 talented programmers or 'supercoders' across the company-as part of its 'Expert Track' programme. 
 
Infosys' head of talent and technology operations, Binod Hampapur Rangadore, told Economic Times that the company has introduced new ILP to entry-level engineers. 
 
"ILP is all about making things a little more interesting, a little more comprehensive and a little more hands-on for trainees. So ILP is all about creating the content in such a way that there is a class, there is a practice session they have to play with and then there is a quiz and there is an assessment, interspersed between teaching," Rangadore told ET in an interview. 
 
The ‘supercoders’, a crack team of code writers to break tough programming and software challenges, will work for Infosys’ top clients. 
 
“We are breaking that myth - someone who can program, can program in any language. So basically we are trying to emphasize more on algorithmic thinking. We've tweaked the approach at our Foundation training program, where they actually learn in 3 different languages. They are being made to realise that three programming languages are not different from each other. So we're introducing that at the entry level," Rangadore told the financial daily. 
 
ET reported that Infosys is also introducing 'Zero Bench', which will give programmers across the company to work on different projects. 
 
(Image: Indiatimes)

Infosys is unleashing ‘supercoders’ to rake in its billions!

In a bid to build an internal team of supercoders, <keyword id="6354512" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Infosys">Infosys</keyword> is willing to go to any length and this time it is going to Silicon Valley. 
 
Infosys wants programmers who can tackle any software-related challenge and for this, it is going to tap talent from Silicon Valley for the initiative known as Expert Track. 
 
Top top Infosys executives Abdul Razack and Navin Budhiraja had told ET that the company was planning to open up the Expert Track programme for gifted coders from innovation hotbeds such as the Silicon Valley and other parts of the world. 
 
"As of now (Expert Track) looks only in India, but we are going to open it up for the Valley as well. We have set this up to hire people from everywhere, not just India -but from across the world. The assessment process is available to anybody , it's essentially an online assessment process," said Budhiraja, senior vice-president and head of architecture and technology at Infosys. 
 
The technology is changing with new innovations and Infosys wants to move with the pace. IT companies are, therefore, fighting it out to remain at the top and offer services in automation, robotics, etc. 
 
Infosys is also keeping its option of tapping talent from startups. 
 
Meanwhile, programmes like Expert Track are rewarding too. 
 
"Career-wise if you grow, you would become something like a Fellow, yes. But obviously that doesn't mean that everybody here in the programme is a Fellow. The key idea is that you're an individual contributor, your main gift is to be a very very good programmer," said Budhiraja.

Infosys is handpicking ‘gifted coders’ from Silicon Valley who can tackle any software-related challenge

<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Infosys&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Infosys</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Tata+Consultancy+Services+&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Tata Consultancy Services </a>are looking forward to hiring more engineers from universities in the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=United+States&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">United States</a>. This move comes along as they brace themselves for stringent visa rules that are expected to be revealed by the new American administration led by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Donald+Trump&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Donald Trump</a>. 
 
This will change the strategy for the Indian outsourcing companies, who earlier use to hire from India but now, will have to rely on US based people. 
 Recently, Senator <keyword id="707305" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jeff-Sessions">Jeff Sessions</keyword>, in his confirmation hearing for the post of attorney general of the <keyword id="6356955" type="COUNTRY" weightage="20" keywordseo="united-states">United States</keyword>, said that the <keyword id="6354484" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Donald-Trump">Donald Trump</keyword> administration will push for legislative reform to curb what he termed as "abuse of H-1B visas for foreign workers”. The Indian outsourcing industry, whose biggest market is the US, has been a beneficiary of the H-1B visa system. 
 "We are (now) looking at hiring from more colleges in the US. With the (new) visa rules, we will have to look at building a pyramid there,” UB Pravin Rao, chief operating officer at <keyword id="6354512" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Infosys">Infosys</keyword>, told ET. 
 
The offshore-pyramid model, the bedrock of Indian IT's success, has a simple structure. Low-paid coders, mostly hired straight out of Indian engineering colleges, formed the large base of the pyramid. 
 
Better-paid mid-to-senior executives in roles like project managers formed the middle. While these two rungs worked predominantly out of India, a smaller number of engineers were sent on H-1B visas to work with clients onsite, in addition to sales executives who were hired in foreign markets. 
 
These companies also hired senior-level executives with many years of industry experience in overseas locations, termed as onsite hires. Campus recruitment, however, has been minimal so far. 
 India's largest IT services company <keyword id="6357585" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tata-Consultancy-Services">Tata Consultancy Services</keyword> also said it would increase the number of young engineers it will hire in the US. 
 
TCS's HR head Ajoyendra Mukherjee, though, added that it was too early to break down the composition of the onsite pyramid. 
 
"At this stage, it will be difficult to comment as to what the percentages would be and we have to ensure that we make our deliveries as per customer requirements. I am not going to get into the percentages of the pyramid,” Mukherjee told analysts. 
 
Engineers with under three years of work experience comprise about 30-35 per cent of the Indian IT industry, which employs about 4 million people. A backof-the-envelope calculation would peg the number of young engineers at between 1.2 million and 1.4 million of the total workforce. 
 
Hiring at Indian IT companies is already dropping. Infosys said it hired 17,000 people in the first nine months of fiscal 2016. It has hired fewer than 6,000 in the same period this year.

Indian IT firms will now hire fresh talent from the US as they don’t want to take any chances

Ever since <keyword id="6369763" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Vishal-Sikka">Vishal Sikka</keyword> has taken over as <keyword id="6354512" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Infosys">Infosys</keyword> chief executive officer, he is doing every possible thing to get the company back to higher growth trajectory. While company is already reaping benefits of some of the moves he made in the past, now revenues are next on Vishal Sikka’s list. The Economic Times reported that Vishal has started personally overseeing about 1,000 customer outsourcing projects and has adopted a hands-on approach to strengthen ties with top outsourcing customers like <keyword id="6374849" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Bank-of-America">Bank of America</keyword> in a bid to generate more incremental revenues. 
 
To explain his plans, Sikka got on a call with about 1,000 of the company’s project managers across the globe few week ago and spoke about the broader contours of how customer projects could deliver more value and discussed ways to identify high-value work in each of them, two people directly familiar with the matter told Economic times on the condition of anonymity. 
 
These projects have been handpicked by Sikka as part of a pilot and he is giving personal attention to all of these. He is even stepping into the shoes of coders and architects wherever needed, one of the persons told the financial daily. 
 
Sikka is betting that deeper, more meaningful engagements with top clients will translate into more business and has thus, made an organization-wide push towards design thinking. He is encouraging employees to think of creative solutions to solve complex business problems for customers, as part of his vision to make technology the centerpiece of every client engagement. 
 
“From my perspective what I did not expect…what I did not anticipate was the degree to which I find this mindset that we don’t use our imagination, our creativity, we do what we are told,” Sikka has said in an interview with ET in February. With commodisation of traditional IT services, Sikka wants to focus on delivering more innovative, high-value solutions. 
 
(Image: India Times)

Here is how Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka plans to improve company revenues

<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-response-watch-ban-series-9-ultra-2-america-report-2023-12"></a><ul class="summary-list"><li>This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.</li></ul>Hi! Chick-fil-A on a Sunday!? That could be a reality if one New York politician gets his way. More on his argument for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/law-could-change-chick-fil-as-sunday-policy-in-new-york-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">why the popular chain should stay open and the locations that could be impacted</a>.In today's big story, we're looking at how a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-halting-sales-series-9-ultra-2-watch-united-states-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">forthcoming Apple Watch ban</a> is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-response-watch-ban-series-9-ultra-2-america-report-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">causing havoc for the tech giant</a>.What's on deck: <ul><li>Markets: The stock market could be <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-outlook-biggest-2024-risk-fed-liquidity-shock-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">staring down the barrel of a liquidity crisis</a> in 2024.</li><li>Tech: Bill Gates peers into his crystal ball to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-ai-radically-transform-jobs-healthcare-education-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">offer up some tech predictions</a>.</li><li>Business: How we buy and sell homes is on the cusp of changing, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/real-estate-antitrust-lawsuits-verdict-agent-commissions-nar-future-homebuying-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">and that's a good thing</a>.</li></ul>But first, heavy is the head that wears the crown.If this was forwarded to you, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/newsletter/insider-today">sign up here.</a><h3>The big story</h3><h2>A bad apple<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/newsletter/insider-today"></a></h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-response-watch-ban-series-9-ultra-2-america-report-2023-12"></a><div type="image" title="Graphic of an Apple watch surrounded by prayer emojis" height="1280" width="1706" msid="106160548" hostid="261"></div>T'was the night before Christmas, and Apple was shook Not one engineer was resting, not even Tim Cook Some of the stockings risked being empty and bare Over fears of an Apple Watch ban that hung in the airThe holidays are a stressful time for Apple. A lot goes into ensuring their products, routinely Christmas list staples, get to where they need to be in time for the big day. But now the world's most ubiquitous tech company has an even bigger problem: a looming ban on one of its most popular products. The Apple Watch Series 9 lineup and the Apple Watch Ultra 2, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/news-today-september-13-apple-new-iphone-release-launch-2023-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the newest iterations of the company's popular smartwatch</a>, are scheduled to be pulled from Apple's online store (December 21) and Apple Store locations (December 24) this week, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-halting-sales-series-9-ultra-2-watch-united-states-2023-12">writes Business Insider's Haley Tenore</a>. The reason stems from a ruling by the International Trade Commission that the watches' use of blood oxygen tracking <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-halting-sales-series-9-ultra-2-watch-united-states-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">violated a patent held by health-tech company Masimo</a>.Of course, Apple hasn't completely thrown in the towel. In a last-minute bid to avoid the ban, Apple's engineers are reportedly <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-response-watch-ban-series-9-ultra-2-america-report-2023-12">scrambling to develop a workaround to avoid infringing on the patent</a>, according to BI's Steven Tweedie and Haley. In its simplest form, that would involve a software update. But Masimo has already argued changing the physical hardware of the watches is necessary, which would be a much bigger lift. There's also the potential for a White-House intervention wherein President Joe Biden vetoes the regulator's ruling. But that'd mean the president would not only be picking sides between two American companies but also favoring one of the tech giants he <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/news-today-december-6-dealmaking-mergers-deals-biden-antitrust-bankers-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pledged to scrutinize under his administration</a>.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-response-watch-ban-series-9-ultra-2-america-report-2023-12"></a><div type="image" title="Tim Cook" height="1277" width="1702" msid="106160549" hostid="261"></div>The Apple Watch fiasco isn't Apple's only problem heading into 2024. Despite a $3 trillion market cap that has it on track to finish the year as the world's most valuable company for the fifth year running, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-watch-vision-pro-problems-at-3-trillion-peak-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple has its fair share of headaches</a>, BI's Hasan Chowdhury writes.In addition to the Apple Watch ban, the tech giant is banking on its newest product — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-apple-described-vision-pro-mixed-reality-headset-2023-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Vision Pro</a> — to take off. It's a risky gambit, as virtual- and augmented-reality products have yet to catch on in a big way. And China, Apple's most important international market, has also proven difficult. The rise of a local iPhone rival (<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-phone-15-apple-people-china-reaction-2023-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Huawei's 5G Mate 60 Pro</a>) and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-apple-iphone-ban-government-officials-agencies-crackdown-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increased US-China tensions</a> have put Apple in a tricky predicament.<h2>3 things in markets</h2><a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/bonds/federal-reserve-balance-sheet-inflation-rate-hike-monetary-policy-crash-2022-11"></a><div type="image" title="Illustration of Wall Street bull and bear" height="960" width="1920" msid="106160550" hostid="261"></div><ol><li> Don't look now, but the Fed could have a liquidity issue in 2024. The Fed has been reducing the size of its balance sheet <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/bonds/federal-reserve-balance-sheet-inflation-rate-hike-monetary-policy-crash-2022-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by almost $100 billion a month</a> in its bid to fight inflation. But if Treasury issuance and interest rates remain high into next year, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-outlook-biggest-2024-risk-fed-liquidity-shock-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">that could eventually lead to a liquidity shortage for banks</a>.</li><li> Bet on these companies looking to lead AI's international revolution. While US-based AI stocks are overcrowded, opportunities exist in emerging markets, according to a fund manager at a $551 billion firm. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/6-stocks-leading-ai-early-adoption-billions-of-people-allspring-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">These six stocks</a>, including Infosys and Lenovo, will play a key role in the broader adoption of AI.</li><li>Don't count your rate cuts before they hatch, according to BlackRock. Rick Rieder, the firm's bond guru, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-outlook-federal-reserve-rate-cuts-blackrock-rick-rieder-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">doesn't agree with market speculation that the Fed will start cutting interest rates in March</a>. Instead, he thinks the market reacted prematurely, and chair Jerome Powell won't be as aggressive with cuts.</li></ol><h2>3 things in tech</h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/github-ai-copilot-launch-legal-challenges-2023-12"></a><div type="image" title="GitHub's newest CEO, Thomas Dohmke" height="1278" width="1705" msid="106160551" hostid="261"></div><ol><li> GitHub execs say coders are rushing to use its AI-coding tool. Copilot can help write and suggest code. Despite copyright concerns, it's been a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/github-ai-copilot-launch-legal-challenges-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hit among developers</a> — they often use it to help auto-complete their code.</li><li> Nearly a third of Gen Z says tech makes them lonelier and spend more money. Around 29% of Gen Zers said in a survey that technology makes them more lonely. But for others, it has the opposite effect, with 35% of young people saying it makes them feel less isolated. Among older generations, however, technology had less of an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-loneliness-technology-ai-social-media-spending-inflation-millennials-2023-12">impact on their loneliness</a>.</li><li>Bill Gates' technology predictions. He published a six-page blog post with some of his <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-ai-radically-transform-jobs-healthcare-education-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">predictions for tech in 2024</a>. Gates believes AI will "supercharge" the innovation pipeline and radically change jobs, healthcare, and education.</li></ol><h2>3 things in business</h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-school-texas-opening-summer-2023-12"></a><div type="image" title="Elon Musk" height="1280" width="1706" msid="106160553" hostid="261"></div><ol><li> Elon Musk is launching a new private K-12 school as soon as this summer. His Ad Astra School quietly moved to Texas, joining other <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-school-texas-opening-summer-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tech-centric "microschools.</a>" It's part of Musk's mysterious new nonprofit, which has generated buzz for plans to eventually build a futuristic university.</li><li> The future of homebuying is going to be a whole lot better. A mounting wave of lawsuits accuses some of the country's biggest real estate brokerages of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/real-estate-antitrust-lawsuits-verdict-agent-commissions-nar-future-homebuying-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">conspiring to rip off consumers</a>. That means the old way of buying and selling homes could disappear forever.</li><li>TikTok is advising Shop merchants to go live for at least two hours. Some are even committing to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-shop-advising-sellers-to-livestream-at-least-2-hours-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">eight- or 24-hour sell-a-thons</a>. Livestreams are a key method for merchants to promote products and drive sales through TikTok Shop.</li></ol><h2>In other news</h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/colorado-rules-trump-disqualified-from-2024-primary-ballot-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Colorado Supreme Court rules Trump disqualified from the 2024 primary ballot</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bryan-cranston-and-aaron-paul-mezcal-dos-hombres-profile-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul's passion project</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-meddled-midterm-elections-biden-wouldnt-retaliate-us-intelligence-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">China meddled in the 2022 election because it figured Biden wouldn't retaliate: US intel report</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-video-shows-big-party-thrown-by-gostudent-edtech-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Leaked video shows $3 billion tutoring startup GoStudent's lavish party with dancing dwarves, fire dancers, and a motocross show</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/young-americans-vote-trump-over-biden-israel-gaza-war-poll-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Young Americans are so disgusted by Biden's handling of Israel's war in Gaza that a poll shows they could vote for Trump</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-failures-at-retail-fresh-grocery-style-fashion-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Seven Amazon retail stumbles, from grocery delivery to clothing stores</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-weight-loss-drugs-affect-couples-relationships-spouses-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">More sex, less arguing: Two women share how weight loss drugs have changed their relationships</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/commure-layoffs-healthcare-ai-merger-athelas-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A $6 billion healthcare-AI startup backed by General Catalyst cut staff after pledging to hire "aggressively</a>."</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-says-you-can-use-cybertruck-as-a-boat-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elon Musk says you'll soon be able to use your Cybertruck as a boat</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-workers-quit-warned-ceo-jensen-huang-ai-harmful-minorities-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nvidia workers warned CEO Jensen Huang that AI might be harmful to minorities. One was so dissatisfied with his response that she quit shortly after</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-travis-kelce-boost-kansas-city-golden-era-2023-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Taylor Swift is pushing Kansas City into its "golden era."</a></li></ul><h2>What's happening today</h2><ul><li>"Percy Jackson and the Olympians" is now on Disney+. Two of the eight episodes will be available to watch.</li><li>Happy birthday, Kylian Mbappé. Jonah Hill, JoJo, and Bob Morley were also born on this day.</li><li>Earnings today: General Mills, Micron Technology, Toro, BlackBerry, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/earnings-calendar" target="_blank" rel="noopener">and other companies</a>.</li></ul><h3>For your bookmarks</h3><h2>Simple, festive desserts</h2><a href="https://www.insider.com/easy-holiday-desserts-5-ingredients-or-fewer-2022-12"></a><div type="image" title="Peppermint Bark" height="1333" width="1778" msid="106160554" hostid="261"></div>These 10 festive desserts need five — or fewer — ingredients. The <a href="https://www.insider.com/easy-holiday-desserts-5-ingredients-or-fewer-2022-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">list of sweet treats</a> includes peppermint bark, chocolate fudge, and sugar cookies.The Insider Today team: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/dan-defrancesco">Dan DeFrancesco</a>, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/diamond-naga-siu">Diamond Naga Siu</a>, senior reporter, in San Diego. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/hallam-bullock">Hallam Bullock</a>, editor, in London. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/jordan-parker-erb">Jordan Parker Erb</a>, editor, in New York. <a href="https://newsletter.businessinsider.com/click/33739711.1210015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYnVzaW5lc3NpbnNpZGVyLmNvbS9hdXRob3IvaGF5bGV5LWh1ZHNvbj91dG1fbWVkaXVtPW5ld3NsZXR0ZXImdXRtX3NvdXJjZT1TYWlsdGhydSZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249SW5zaWRlcl9Ub2RheQ/6388bd81e7b7ccd0ba0929daB5b9051cd" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hayley Hudson</a>, director, in Edinburgh. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/lisa-ryan">Lisa Ryan</a>, executive editor, in New York.

The looming Apple Watch ban isn't the only issue Apple faces heading into 2024

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"></div>Vivek Prakash/Reuters</div>BANGALORE/MUMBAI, March 25 (<keyword id="76338" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Reuters">Reuters</keyword>) - <keyword id="3658" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="India">India</keyword>'s IT outsourcers are promoting "mini CEOs" capable of running businesses on their own, while trimming down on the hordes of entry-level computer coders they normally hire as they try to squeeze more profits out of their staff.
The shift by Infosys Ltd and others is symptomatic of a maturing industry that wants more revenue from its own intellectual property instead of providing only labour-intensive, lower-margin <keyword id="6363148" type="TECHNOLOGY" weightage="60" keywordseo="information-Technology">information technology</keyword> and back-office services.
For young graduates who see the $108 billion IT industry as a sure pathway to modern India's growing middle class, the transformation is unsettling.
Dozens of industry aspirants who were recruited on campus by No. 4 player HCL Technologies recently protested outside its offices in several cities. They were offered jobs in 2011 before graduating last year but have not yet been given joining dates - or paychecks.
"Dear H.R. You were also a fresher... once," read a sign carried by two protesters in a photo in The Hindu newspaper.
HCL's December quarter profits and revenues rose while staff numbers shrank - a rare trick in an industry that has long aspired to break the linear relationship between headcount and revenue growth.
Just 20 percent of the 5,000-6,000 campus recruits offered HCL jobs in 2011 have been taken on board since graduation last summer, and HCL said it made no offers in 2012 to students who would graduate in June 2013.
Slower growth, fewer people leaving, greater demand by customers for experienced staff, and increased productivity through automation and software have put pressure on all recruits, according to HCL, which said it expects to accelerate bringing entry-level staff on board from August.
"It's not that the demand doesn't exist. It exists for different skills," said Ajay Davessar, HCL's head of external communications.
"Typical roles which a student thinks, 'I'll just go there and start coding, and have a good life,' are being tested to reality... Any applicant, be it fresher or senior, will have to have flexibility in applying the skills elsewhere."
FEWER 'CODING COOLIES'
<keyword id="6358815" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="tech">Tech</keyword> Mahindra Ltd, the No.5 player, is naming 100 of what it calls mini-CEOs who will be given broad latitude to run their parts of the business.
"We're moving towards a situation like the developed economies, where we're asking the people to be more deep," said Sujitha Karnad, who heads human resources at Tech Mahindra.
"We want more solution architects to be here. We don't want the coding coolies anymore, that's clear," Karnad said, employing a term commonly used in India in association with menial labourers.
While plenty of Indian back office work such as technical support, processing insurance claims or staffing call centres will remain labour-intensive, software services firms are looking to move up the value chain, which means relying less on the time and toil of staff.
Growth in revenue per employee across the industry could expand to 5 percent a year in the next two years from about 3 percent over the past five, said Forrester Research principal analyst Frederic Giron. The growth rate is likely to accelerate from around 2015 as intellectual property-based work accounts for a growing share of the total, he said.
India's IT services industry grew in large part because of the availability of cheap skilled labour, an advantage that is eroding as wages and other costs in India rise.
In years past, it was cost-effective for IT companies to hire new graduates by the thousands and keep a portion on the "bench" awaiting deployment on a client project.
But budget-constrained clients now demand shorter lead times. IT vendors that might have hired people six months in advance of an expected contract are now working with a one- or two-month window, said Surabhi Mathur Gandhi, senior vice president at TeamLease, a staffing consultancy.
Traditionally, about 30 percent of Indian IT services industry staff are on the bench at any given time, often in training, as they await deployment to client work.
In the December quarter, about 70 percent of Infosys staff and less than 65 percent at No. 3 provider Wipro were deployed on billable projects. At Tata Consultancy Services , the largest Indian IT services company, the figure was 72 percent, within what Ajoyendra Mukherjee, its human resources head, calls the comfort range of 70 to 74 percent utilisation.
"I think we can push it up to 75, 76," he said.
Another IT services company, iGate Corp, envisions a future where just 10 percent of staff sit on the bench, said Srinivas Kandula, its human resources head, who predicts that the size of its bench will shrink by 2 or 3 percentage points a year over the next five years.
BACK-UP PLAN
Shorter benches mean a smaller share of hiring is direct from campuses, as seasoned professionals moving from a competitor would be less willing to wait to be deployed and firms are reluctant to pay them to do so.
Companies are also binding hires, especially experienced ones, with three-month notice periods and no-buy-out clauses, compared with one-month notice periods previously.
Among top-tier companies that are most actively trying to push non-linear growth where revenues are not constrained by the size of the work force, about 70 percent of employees are experienced staff, up from 60 percent in 2008, said Rajiv Srinivas, an associate director at Tech Mahindra, who expects that to rise to about 90 percent in the next two or three years.
At Infosys, while the net quarterly addition of employees fell from 4,906 people in the March quarter last year to 977 in the December quarter (excluding an acquisition), lateral recruitment held steady at an average of about 4,300 staff per quarter through December, meaning the percentage of campus hires was much lower.
"Earlier, the focus was more on career ... You get into a job, you start learning, and slowly acquire knowledge over a period of time," said Sunil Gupta, who joined Infosys as vice president of quality about six months ago from the Indian unit of CGI Group's Logica Plc.
"Today the value of a professional is judged by how quickly you're learning, how quickly you're adapting yourself and changing along with the environment," he said.
For young Indians who saw IT as a ticket into the middle class, the change means that career path is becoming less clear. Those who do break in and build valuable skills will remain in demand, but the days of young IT staffers brandishing five or more competing offers are over.
Yet that hasn't necessarily translated into slower wage growth. Mercer LLC expects industry salaries to grow 12 percent this year, the same as in 2012. As India's economy diversifies, graduates have more attractive career options, including at multinationals with a growing India presence, such as Google Inc , which means IT vendors must fight to stay attractive.
"We see IT companies as a back-up," said S. S. Jayaram, a final-year engineering student in Bangalore who says he chose a job in India with Mu Sigma Inc, a fast-growing U.S.-based data analytics company, over offers from IBM and TCS. (Editing by Emily Kaiser)
<div class="nc_footer">
Copyright (2013) Thomson Reuters. <a href="http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/media/brand_guidelines/legal_notice/">Click for restrictions</a>
</div>

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The looming Apple Watch ban isn't the only issue Apple faces heading into 2024

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The $109 Billion Indian IT Industry Is Going Through A Massive Shift

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