Sikka, whose venture is in early stages, said people need to be educated about AI as not many people in the world right now are well-versed with the technology. Sikka said fewer than 250,000 people in the world know about machine learning so far, and that its deeper understanding would lead to broader applications.

According to Salil Parekh, the company's new strategy rests on four pillars: Scaling up digital, energising the \"core\" using automation and AI, reskilling the workforce and expanding localisation.

The acquisition of the cloud-based application delivery and test automation solutions provider for $200 million in 2015 had triggered a major crisis in Infosys, with its cofounder NR Narayana Murthy going public over the lack of transparency in the deal, which was concluded by Vishal Sikka.

Expectations are high among IT analysts, and those in the IT sector, that Parekh may outline the company's vision. Business Today has learnt that the company has hired a strategy consulting firm to fine-tune its new vision.

Parekh inherits a company with several serious strengths including high margins, a large customer and employee base. He also has several immediate challenges.

The USD 3.5 trillion global IT services industry is undergoing a seismic shift. Traditional models which served the USD 158 billion a year in revenue Indian IT industry well in the past like 'lift and shift' and 'labour arbitrage' have been upended.

U B Pravin Rao has been appointed as interim-managing director and chief executive, Infosys said in a statement. Sikka has now been appointed as executive vice-chairman.

Infosys Co-Chairman Ravi Venkatesan today said the company certainly would not want to label co-founder and promoter N R Narayana Murthy as a shareholder activist, but consider him a \"well-wisher.\"

Infosys said the first 500 of the 2,000 North Carolina workers will be appointed by the end of two years, with the remainder to be hired in the state by 2021.

Infosys Ltd on Wednesday touted its new strategy to hire and train 10,000 American workers over the next two years at the company's annual leadership meeting in San Francisco.

But beyond the quarterly gyrations, it is clear that the days of go-go growth are over. If Infosys is to realize its stated goal of $20 billion in revenues by 2020 (being stated as 'stretch goal') the current anaemic 8-9 per cent annual growth is unlikely to get the company there.

Cautioning Infosys employees that the road ahead is long and not easy, company chief executive officer (CEO) Vishal Sikka has stressed the importance of automation and warned against \"lackadaisical\" attitude towards greater value creation.

Indian companies including Tata Consultancy Services or TCS, Infosys and Wipro have long used H1-B skilled worker visas to fly computer engineers to the US, their largest overseas market, temporarily to service clients.

Infosys makes a comeback to the Top 5 of the BT500 listing, after a five-year hiatus.

\"We have just finished training about 1,00,000 of Infosys employees on design thinking. My sense is we are entering a time when everyone will be expected to innovate because increasingly the work that we do, that can be specified, that can be articulated, will be done by AI,\" Infosys CEO and MD Vishal Sikka said at Citi Global Technology Conference 2016.

\"Q1FY17 has been disappointing but this has come after couple of good quarters and YoY CC growth of 10.9 per cent is healthy and FY17 growth guidance also implies above industry growth rate,\" said brokerage.

Business Today's Prosenjit Datta and Rajeev Dubey caught up with Vishal Sikka at Infosys's Bangalore headquarters.

Splitting his time between San Francisco (where he continues to live), Bangalore and the rest of the world, Sikka has given Infosys a new 2020 goal and introduced fundamental changes to the company's structure, its work culture and its performance.

After years of poor performance, Infosys delivered a great set of numbers with a sequential revenue growth of 0.6% in dollar terms for a revenue of $2.4 billion.