India isn’t just a market for ServiceNow — it’s a core R&D hub. About 40% of its global product engineering happens here. That’s not limited to product creation; engineering teams here often work directly on large-scale deployments.

The platform-as-a-service company could possibly resolve one of Indian IT’s chronic problems: the bench. 

ServiceNow’s MD and GVP, India and SAARC, Ganesh Lakshminarayanan said that AI could match skills in real-time, recommend training, and push people into billable work faster, while reflecting on resolving the demand and supply conundrum of the Indian IT industry. 

While speaking with AIM, he said that access to data on both the ends and AI agent’s intervention would be critical to design such workflows.

“Assume that there are AI agents working on both sides. Somebody who’s coming up with personalised recommendations and somebody who’s pushing the workflow. Suddenly, you’re solving the most important problem SIs are having,” Lakshminarayanan said, talking about reducing the numbers on the bench.

This is where a platform approach beats siloed tools, he argued. It’s also why ServiceNow is investing in an “AI Control Tower” that can orchestrate not just its own agents, but those built on Microsoft, ERP systems, or other vendors. “Our approach has never been proprietary,” he said. 

“We work with multiple LLMs. The value is in the data and workflows.”

This will help companies train and upskill employees in real time with new skillsets without a human push. “You can build AI which learns on both sides and creates personalised recommendations for each employee,” he explained.

Lakshminarayanan said that the Indian market, by all accounts, is heating up fast. “The country is going through a major AI uptick. We are in the right stage of growth.” The proximity to both customers and developers, he said, is a “boon”, allowing rapid innovation and problem-solving.

ServiceNow’s Big Bets on India

While Indian IT and consulting giants are busy promising AI transformation, ServiceNow is already delivering it. In a market filled with pilots, the company’s AI subscription revenue has risen to $3 billion, and AI deal volume has increased by 50% in a single quarter, as per its Q2 earnings results.

ServiceNow’s own research predicts AI will create 10.3 million jobs in India by 2030. Lakshminarayanan has lived through three tech booms—the internet, BPO, and now AI—and believes each has been a net job creator. 

The roles may shift away from pure coding to “business-tech-commercial” skills, but the demand will be massive. He’s backing that belief with a goal to train one million Indian learners in AI skills by 2027, part of a global goal of three million of ServiceNow University. 

“India needs AI, but AI needs India,” he said, pointing to the country’s unmatched scale in banking, telecom, retail, and IT services. “If a particular AI company wants to make their AI agents useful for banking, where else are you going to find the biggest banks in terms of volume of transactions? You’re going to find them in India.”

Most importantly, Lakshminarayanan is clear that the future belongs to platforms that can bring together data, workflows, and AI agents. ServiceNow’s Workflow Data Fabric (WDF) is designed to do exactly that—connect multiple systems of record without copying data, making it instantly accessible to AI agents with minimal latency.

This is similar to what Sumeet Mathur, SVP and MD of ServiceNow India Technology & Business Centre, told AIM earlier.

“Our one-platform approach gives us a significant edge over competitors who rely on acquisitions to piece together solutions,” Mathur explained. ServiceNow stands out with its commitment to providing a single platform, data model, and architecture. This strategy ensures an integrated and seamless user experience across an enterprise’s various functions.

Paul Smith, former president of global customer and field operation at ServiceNow, told AIM earlier in an interaction: “One in five of all ServiceNow employees is based in India. And 85% of the resources that we have in ServiceNow India are in R&D and engineering roles — especially core engineering.” 

Smith went on to highlight that a significant number of these engineers are working on leading-edge research around AI, underlining India’s role in building the future of enterprise automation. He is currently the chief commercial officer at Anthropic. 

The Service Deficit

Infosys and TCS, two of ServiceNow’s biggest Indian partners, are also building AI platforms. Lakshminarayanan sees their role as complementary. “AI value comes from data plus workflows. We’ve been doing IT workflows for 20 years, which is why we can achieve 78% automation already with agentic AI.”

Lakshminarayanan is quick to draw a line between ServiceNow’s positioning and that of other IT vendors. “We are an AI platform company,” he said. This shift is deliberate. 

ServiceNow’s long-standing IT workflows, HR automation, and service management tools have given it something many AI startups and consultancies don’t have: deep, structured, enterprise-wide data. 

Lakshminarayanan pushes back on the narrative that AI adoption would lead to reduced jobs. Instead, he sees Indian enterprises using AI to bridge what he calls “the service deficit.”

He recalls a conversation with the ED of a large public-sector bank. The executive asked: Why should only a small percentage of accounts get a dedicated relationship manager? Why not use AI agents to make that experience available to every account holder?

It’s a theme he sees across industries — from consulting firms looking to give every employee a digital executive assistant, to HR leaders wanting a dedicated recruiter for every candidate. “It’s about hyper-personalised service, so people can focus on meaningful work,” he said.

With OpenAI now hiring forward-deployed engineers in a Palantir-style move, is there a threat to ServiceNow’s position? Lakshminarayanan doesn’t think so. 

“Yes, you can deploy forward engineers, but without existing data and workflows, you’re starting from scratch. We have 150 AI agents out-of-the-box, going to a thousand in six months. Time to value matters.”

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