Cognizant adds 7,500 in Q2, lifts outlook on robust deal wins | Bengaluru News

Bengaluru: While TCS is grappling with layoffs and other Indian IT firms with minimal net headcount additions, Nasdaq-listed Cognizant added 7,500 employees sequentially in the June quarter, bringing its workforce to 3.3 lakh. A significant portion of this came from onboarding fresh graduates in India. The company aims to hire 15,000 to 20,000 freshers this year, similar to last year. CEO S Ravi Kumar said the talent strategy will include hiring from non-traditional streams—biology majors, chartered accountants, legal experts—and training them on AI use cases relevant to their domains. “Our operating model is changing—we are moving towards smaller, agile teams that deliver specific outcomes,” he added. Managers will lead teams comprising both human employees and AI agents. Kumar said freshers are now expected to write code alongside AI. “We want the productive to be more productive. We want broader access to these technologies so people can reimagine delivery for clients,” he said.CFO Jatin Dalal said, “There will be some increase in the second half, but not large, as we double down on AI-led productivity and doing more with less. We’ll keep hiring recent graduates while optimizing through AI.”Cognizant’s attrition fell to 15.2% in the June quarter from 15.8% in the prior quarter. The company raised the lower end of its full-year revenue guidance to 4–6% in constant currency after a strong Q2 performance. It reported 7.2% YoY constant currency revenue growth, driven by execution and large deal wins. The Belcan acquisition contributed about 400 basis points to this growth. Last year, Cognizant acquired US engineering R&D firm Belcan for $1.3 billion—its second-largest deal.This growth surpasses the upper end of its previous guidance. Cognizant closed six large deals in the quarter, including two mega contracts over $1 billion each. Kumar said, “We are gaining momentum in our execution, which is why we’ve raised the lower end of our guidance.” Growth was fuelled by digital transformation and AI-led deals, especially in healthcare and financial services.AI is creating new tech services spending cycles, especially across finance, procurement, legal, and R&D—beyond traditional productivity-led arbitrage. The company now runs 2,500 active AI projects, up from 1,400 last quarter, many aligned with growth and innovation. Kumar added that both growth “swim lanes”—productivity and innovation—were active this quarter. Dalal emphasized that while the macro environment remains uncertain, narrowing the guidance is not due to visibility concerns. “Our outlook assumes no major macro improvement, but clients are clearly engaging in innovation spend,” he said.Products and resources grew 14.7% in constant currency, followed by BFSI (6%), healthcare (5.3%), and communications (2.2%). Cognizant also plans to return $2 billion to shareholders via dividends and buybacks.