New Delhi, Aug. 31 -- I have written before about the rough quarters ahead for India's large IT players like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Cognizant: from outcome-based pricing and shrinking fees to a thinning fresher pipeline. And the fact that smaller players are upstaging them on artificial intelligence (AI)-based business. Persistent Systems grew over 16% in the last quarter while Coforge grew revenue by over a third, partly by acquisition.

The obvious approach is acquisitions and the obvious objective is not more delivery capacity, since that is precisely what AI is commoditizing. The more interesting targets sit adjacent to the core business: firms that verify, audit and govern AI output rather than simply generate i...