'Run it hot', The Wall Street Theme Playing Out Here Too
While the economists are focussed on slowing job growth and the impact of tariffs, the core of the trade lies in betting on an economic resurgence
On Episode 678 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Ajay Kedia is the Founder and Director of Kedia Capital Services as well as Rajiv Mitra, Food and Dairy industry expert. We also feature excerpts from a recent panel discussion on AI and Agentic AI with several business leaders at Season 9 of the Accenture B School Challenge.
SHOW NOTES
(00:00) Stories of the Day
(00:50) Run it hot, the Wall Street theme playing out here too.
(05:36) Gold prices hit fresh highs. How much further?
(11:07) What happens if India opens its market to American premium cheese?
(18:44) How enterprises from shoes to beer and tyres are using AI at work.
NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on [email protected].
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Good morning, it's Tuesday the 16th of September and this is Govindraj Ethiraj broadcasting and streaming weekdays from Mumbai, India's financial capital once again totally rained out.
And our top stories and themes,
Run It Hot, the Wall Street theme that's playing out in India too.
Gold prices hit fresh highs, how much further could they go?
What happens if India opens its market to American premium cheese?
And how enterprises from shoes to beer and tyres are using artificial intelligence at work.
Running It Hot
So the coolest trade on Wall Street is apparently called Run It Hot. While economists are focused on slowing job growth and the impact of tariffs, the core of the trade lies in betting on an economic resurgence, not a recession, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The core of the Run It Hot trade is the idea that US economic conditions are going to be very strong, supported by easy monetary and fiscal policy. Bob Elliott, the CEO of Unlimited Funds, who popularised the term Run It Hot, told the Wall Street Journal that the core of the Run It Hot trade is the idea that US economic conditions are going to be very strong, supported by easy monetary and fiscal policy. So the thinking is that tax cuts and falling interest rates will heat up the economy, fuelling a new burst of growth.
So therefore, focus on falling interest rates and ignore everything else because interest rates alone will solve all problems, at least low interest rates. And at least that's how traders appear to be thinking on Wall Street. And by the way, lower interest rates also help corporate bottom lines.
So another reason to buy up the stocks. An active asset manager at Alliance Bernstein also told Wall Street Journal that we've got an economy that's still growing. It's not falling off the cliff.
And he thinks it's actually a pretty good environment for risk assets, if only the central bank can start cutting rates. So the background is, you know, the Dow Jones S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are all at record highs, that of course, mostly by technology stocks. Now, there are some sceptics as well, even if in an apparent minority.
A chief strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management says that he sees evidence of a gradually slowing economy that he expects will weigh on cyclic industries such as manufacturing or retail. And he also said that he felt the stock markets were misinterpreting the state of affairs if they think that a rate cut here is going to do any good at all to the overall direction of the economy and profitability. And then, of course, the AI boom means that some investors expect a strong economy to coexist with a weaker labour market, something that was once hard to imagine in America's consumer-driven economy, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Now, back home, the Indian market snapped long rallies that lasted several days. And of course, the jury is still out on whether we are also running it hot. The 30 stock snapped a five-day winning run after closing 119 points down at 81,786.
And the Nifty 50 snapped an eight-day run, falling 45 points down to 25,069. The rupee was flat on Monday, thanks to a boost from a largely weaker dollar and persistent hedging demand from importers and not much, or rather lacklustre foreign portfolio flows, according to Reuters, which added that the rupee closed at Rs.88.21 against the dollar, slightly stronger than its previous close of Rs.88.27. India's merchandise trade deficit narrowed in August to $26.49 billion from $27.35 billion in July, as exports slowed after import tariffs were increased on Indian goods into the United States. The latest news, of course, is that India and the US are slated to have trade negotiations on Tuesday in Delhi, which means there could be a thaw.
But then, since you and I are all veterans in this game, it's best to wait and watch. Meanwhile, Trump's tariffs are estimated to have cost Andhra Pradesh approximately 25,000 crores in shrimp exports, with government officials saying about 50% orders have been cancelled. Andhra Pradesh accounts for nearly 80% of the country's shrimp exports, and Indian Express reports said, adding that with nearly 600 crores in exports, tariff burdens are now falling on about 2,000 containers.
Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has sought the centre's intervention to help shrimp farmers because of this export crisis. Tariffs are now at almost 60% after Trump announced those 25% additional tariffs, above the 25% announced earlier, as well as a roughly 5.75% countervailing duty and about 4% anti-dumping duty. Speaking of Trump, I wonder how this could go in Indian markets, since people have been talking about it for a while, and we'll have more reactions in a day or two.
Trump on Monday said that there should be a change in corporate reporting requirements, suggesting that companies and corporations should report financial results on a six-monthly basis rather than quarterly. In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, he said the move, subject to approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US equivalent of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, would save companies money and allow managers to focus on running their businesses effectively. So whatever else you may think about Trump, this is something that a lot of CEOs would surely welcome anywhere in the world.
And Then There's Gold…
Gold prices are around $3,644 per ounce after hitting a record of $3,673 on Tuesday. Gold prices have crossed a record peak of 110,000 rupees per 10 grams last week and are now up 42% year-to-date after gaining about 21% in 2024.
So the general expectation is that retail demand is going to slow down. The CEO of P. N. Gadgil and Sons told Reuters at the sidelines of the India Gold Conference in Delhi that consumers have fixed budgets and it's not keeping up with rising prices and they're expecting demand to fall by 10 to 15% in volume. This is, of course, the festival season, during which buying gold is considered auspicious, particularly Dhasera and Diwali, which is in October.
The December quarter typically accounts for about one-third of India's total gold sales. And like we said, it coincides with festivals and also the start of the wedding season. Reuters says gold demand in the December quarter last year was at about 265 tonnes and last year India had also reduced import duties on gold from 15% to 6%.
To get a sense on how things look from an India point of view, I reached out to Ajay Kedia, commodity and metals expert of Kedia Advisory, and I began by asking him how he was seeing the market at these record highs.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Ajay Kedia: First of all, definitely in the last one year, we have seen a very tremendous rally, which we have never seen in the last 25-30 years. That is more than 50% rally on the domestic side, thanks to rupee weakness also. I still feel that fundamentals are very sound, we have seen geopolitical tension going on, interest rates, or we can say, central banks continue to buy ETFs, all these factors have contributed to this rally. But definitely after a 50% YOY rally, slightly I will be more cautious at this moment, because equities are cheaper, or other asset classes might be slightly cheaper as compared to gold.
So risk is slightly on gold.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Okay, and how are you seeing the impact of this on demand, particularly in the festive season in India?
Ajay Kedia: India is a, we can say, price sensitive market. No doubt, gold as a ritual, we have to buy, let it be Akshaya Tetiya, Dhanteras or marriages. So yes, it would be impactful.
But see, I think value-wise, things would be improving on the jeweller end. But from volume-wise, that will be dropped. Secondly, I have met with many jewellers who found that old gold is coming into the market.
So definitely the volume size, or we can say the purchase, generally people buy, let's say 20 grammes, so that could be subsidised to 10-12 grammes. Even the government is focussing, or a jeweller is focussing on lower carat gold, like 18, 16, and below also. But volumes have to come down.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Okay, at this point of time, if you were to try and project where prices could go, would you be looking mostly at international factors? And if within international, is there any one or two specific things apart from interest rates?
Ajay Kedia: There are many factors. Since the last 4-5 years, we have seen geopolitics, but now geopolitically, I think it's on the verge of completion, like Russia, Ukraine were continuously since the last 1000 days. But now the US is trying to push down by saying from Europe, put a 100% tariff on India and China.
But I think in the next couple of months or 3 months, at least we can see a partial ceasefire, that will be a big blow. Secondly, the central bank. Up till now, the central bank was one of the biggest buyers in the last 25 years.
But I think the current rate and current risk appetite has been slightly subsidised. So I think other than interest rate, there would be a central bank buying or an ETF also because one has already got a return of 50% and more. So I think ETF, outflow, central bank buying, and geopolitically, these 3 points should be important for the next few rallies.
Govindraj Ethiraj: When you look at asset classes, now, usually, while people may have had some amount of gold in their portfolio, it may not have been that much. So do you see that having increased and people having switched out from other assets to gold in the last few months or year?
Ajay Kedia: Few months would be very short, but yes, in last couple of years, we have found that family offices and financial players, when they have stuck in the equity market, has moved towards gold and silver, especially in case of gold, because of these all factors, what we have discussed, that has moved up till now in last couple of years. Even an ETF has been launched in India. We have seen a tremendous boost in ETFs also, that clearly shows.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And as you look ahead, Ajay, in the next, let's say, 3 to 6 months, what are the factors you feel are going to drive prices and what's your outlook?
Ajay Kedia: So coming to the outlook, frankly, I was very much bullish. We were targeting at least 3,100 last Diwali and we have not achieved 3,100, 3,700. But frankly, for the next 3 to 6 months, I am expecting either consolidation or a fall because generally we see gold doesn't come with a percentage fall.
Gold generally we say has a time correction. So it's a time correction we are looking for the next 3 to 6 month period or a correction of 8 to 10% would be viable. Already we have seen from 3,500 to 3,100.
Current level demand would be impacting very much and what are the factors up till now we have seen are now mature. So I'm expecting a correction or a time correction in the next 3 to 6 months.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Ajay, it's been a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for joining me.
All About Cheese
A US trade official told a newspaper that Washington was mainly interested in exporting premium cheese to India and has little intention of competing in the mass market milk segment, obviously a sensitive area.
The official told Business Standard newspaper that it does not make sense to export milk or yoghurt to India. We're talking about high-end products like certain cheese varieties, which may be what 2 to 5% of people will consume. Now, whether or not we actually import cheese or more of it or not, the statements have some additional relevance given that trade talks with the US are resuming and most likely today.
According to that Business Standard report, India already imports small quantities of premium cheese like grated or powdered cheese, processed cheese, not grated, blue-veined cheese, and artisanal cheese, all of which have duties about 30 to 40%, including from countries like Lithuania, UK, that's the United Kingdom, and Italy. But then there is of course a larger point in this. It's not the amount of cheese that matters, but it's about the direction that we are setting in our trade talks.
So to understand what premium cheese means specifically, but more importantly from a trade point of view, an opportunity for the Indian market, I reached out to Rajiv Mitra, former CEO of Lactalis Group in India, and now senior advisor to Indapur Dairy and Milk based out of Pune, and I began by asking him to walk us through how he was seeing the market.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Rajiv Mitra: I have seen the reports while I have not seen any official communication from the government. I see it as a very good midway, as a very good way to move forward in the current kind of stalemate that we have. We are talking of premium cheese which India is not making en masse.
So, we are giving access to the US to a market where India is not participating. At the same time, we are not compromising on our stance of protecting the mass dairy market. You would see that the report says that the US is not interested.
Very rightly so. And this is what we talked about in the earlier episode that I did with you. They are not interested in our mass milk and yoghurt markets.
So, this is super premium cheese. But the caution here is how do we define premium cheese? Is it Brie or Camembert or Gouda or Emmental or aged Cheddar?
Is that? Because my word of caution stems from the fact that paneer is also cheese. So, that listing has to be very carefully done, which I have not seen yet.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Now, we are already importing cheese and it's only, I mean, a few million dollars right now and we're importing it from many countries. So, what would change then between, let's say, us importing it already versus allowing it to be imported from the US if it's not happening already?
Rajiv Mitra: No, there are a couple of things. One is whatever imports are happening in cheese, very, very small quantities, maybe some personal, not that much of institutional initiative. This becomes institutionalised.
One. Two, I see it as a very good communication strategy that, yes, I am opening it up for you. So, there has to be a kind of give and take.
While internally we know that we are not opening up the mass dairy, we are not opening up milk and curd and paneer and other daily consumption. So, our farmers are protected. And also, I see Govind, as a very good model for phased liberalisation of the industry.
Because opening up will happen in my mind, maybe 10 years down the line or sometime in the future. So, this could be a phased model of opening up that we open up a little bit, maybe 2% today, 5% tomorrow, 10 days after. And that's how we bring competitiveness and improve our internal industry.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And why is India then being wary of opening its dairy sector even for these super premium categories or niche categories?
Rajiv Mitra: So, first of all, if you are talking about super premium or niche, then you define it well. Otherwise, you keep a lot of scope for loopholes, opportunity of misuse. India is basically protecting the dairy segment because it is a livelihood for 80 million families.
Now, we may question that, what have we done till now? Why have we not become competitive, etc? That may be for another day.
But today, we are protecting the lives of people over consumer choice. Now, the question is, why super premium protection is which India is not making anyways, or let's say whey protein ingredients. India is importing and we know that.
Why? Because there were no Indian manufacturers today. There are a few Indian manufacturers in Maharashtra.
I see a couple of them, Sona is one. So, there are a lot of whey ingredients happening now. But we are importing, it is not that we are not.
So, I see it as a good communication strategy also to say that, yes, now I am opening it up for this segment, the niche segment. I will not allow you to touch the masses. And maybe I will take some tariff reduction overall.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. So, how do you see Indian producers now or in general, entering or expanding into this premium stroke, super premium category of dairy products, not just cheese?
Rajiv Mitra: See, once this opens up, this could open up to an extent of 1%, 2% or 5%. I see a technology transfer happening. I see investments in cold chains happening.
I see consumer preference, consumer evolution happening. So, all of these will lead to a competitiveness with the Indian manufacturers, however small in number they are. Okay.
But at the same time, the risk is, let's say one producer in Satara is manufacturing artisanal cheese. And that one manufacturer is not just a statistic. It's not a percentage.
He is a manufacturer and he will be impacted by this. He will not be protected by this decision. He will be impacted.
So, the only way that he or she will have is to improve. And at the same time, I am sure once the government opens this up, there will be support in terms of infrastructure enhancement, in terms of marketing, in terms of technology transfer. If you see, even the multinational dairy companies who are in India today, haven't done too much on technology transfer.
They have only been doing more of the same thing or sometimes less of the same thing. So, now with this, there might be some incentive for people to bring in some technology to improve value addition, which will help our Indian manufacturers.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Last question. So, we did say in the beginning or rather you said that, you know, the US is not interested in the mass market.
Why is that? It's not interesting because the economics of, let's say, delivering milk over long distances don't work or is it some other reason? Assuming the market was there or opened up.
Rajiv Mitra: If the market was opened up, they could try but milk doesn't travel that much. Fresh milk will not travel. Even if I am producing in Pune or Mumbai, I don't send fresh milk to Calcutta.
I don't send fresh milk to Chennai, let alone the US. So, that is one. And then I still believe that there is a need to ring fence the 80 million families who are engaged with the industry for some time till we become more competitive, which we will be with this kind of phased liberalisation model.
I see this as a very welcome step.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Rajiv, it's been a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for joining me.
Rajiv Mitra: My pleasure, Govind. Thanks always.
Enterprise AI
Late last week, I had the opportunity to chair a panel discussion on artificial intelligence and agentic AI with several business leaders.
The backdrop was Season 9 of the Accenture B-School Challenge, where some 3,000 teams and 12,000 participants from India's leading B-Schools competed to reimagine enterprise processes using agentic AI. In my conversations with leaders, several insights came up, and let me take you through some of the key responses to my questions. I started off by speaking with Gunjan Shah, a footwear major, Bata India, on the theme of hyper-personalisation that Bata is aiming for using AI.
TRANSCRIPT
Gunjan Shah: And not only agentic, but also the previous version of generative and predictive, right? So I think that itself unlocks a lot of stuff. And then if, let's say, if in any other case, if the team is given enough freedom and empowerment, then obviously solutions emerge, business impact and use cases emerge, and therefore then the investments flow behind it.
From a hyper-personalisation point of view, I think there are multiple cases. And that's been, I think, under the journey for, I would say, at least three to five years now, right? So one is basically outreach to consumers, right?
Now with the digital mediums available, in various ways you are able to target consumers directly, right, in clusters as well as literally one is to one, right? So targeting Govind himself, right? So that's, I think, one big piece, whether it's in communication platforms on social media or whether it's in individual platforms like WhatsApp or SMS and emails, et cetera, right?
So how do we segment consumers? What are your preferences and choices? What's your history with us, engagement?
And therefore, what is it that we can customise as offers and whatever communications to you? The second big piece is that almost 5,000 to about 10,000 consumers reach out to us every day, right, for various reasons. The point is, how can we make sure that we give them a seamless experience which is unified all across, right?
So they interact with us on multiple platforms, whether it's on our online platforms, in our stores, going back histories, multiple banners, as well as in marketplaces, right? So how can we make sure that the person who is being reached out to from our customer service point of view, how can that person have a unified understanding of what Govind is looking for, and therefore, what is his history, and therefore, provide a customised solution? The last piece that is there is basically, I would say, in terms of even designing, but that's still, I would say, a work in progress, I would say.
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I then asked Nilesh Patel, head of Carlsberg in India, the beer company, about how they were seeing AI and its applications.
TRANSCRIPT
Nilesh Patel: So in the alcohol industry, it's like any consumer goods industry, right? So what we have done, and we're just embarking on this, it's a consumer industry, it's quite complex. So we have decided that we will focus on the front end, which is to really use technology and AI to really understand our consumers, what motivates them to buy goods, et cetera, what motivates them then eventually to choose beer, what then motivates them to then choose the brands, and then what then motivates them to go and buy again and again the same brand.
So one part is understanding the consumer part. The second part is really all the customer engagement. So customers have technology, we have technology.
We want to become not just a seller of product, we want to be a partner in this. And the way we want to do it is use AI and technology to integrate automatic replenishment, understand the consumers who go to restaurants and bars, what they order, and therefore provide them all the information regarding our beers. Carlsberg is a 200-year-old company, we've got a lot of history, we've got a lot of heritage from Denmark, which we can share with consumers so that they choose their preferred beer.
So we want to use that, that's the third area. The fourth area is, sorry, the third area is supply chain. In supply chain, our biggest challenge is, India is a vast country, alcohol is a state-by-state subject, it's quite volatile, is to get the demand and supply right.
So for example, you can take history of what has happened in a state in terms of demand, input all the necessary consumer data, customer data, and then look at history and do some prediction of what could be going forward. And based on that, we can make predictions and keep using it so that it gets better and better all the time. The fourth and the final part is around sustainability.
So our passion is water. Before we even use AI, there are many things we can do to fix water issues by reducing, reusing, recycling, and replenishment. But once you have done all of that, and you've saved, so in Carlsberg, we were spending, we were using four litres of water to make one litre of beer.
Today, just by doing the basics, we're using two litres of water to make one litre of beer. Significant reduction. We want to get down to below two, and that's where AI can come in.
You can put sensors where the leakages happen, look at the history of where most leakages will happen, and then be proactive. Before the leak starts, you go and get that washer changed, or get that joint repaired, and so on and so forth. So these are some of the basic things that we can start looking at.
And I think the final part is that you must get your foundation right, which is the data. Today, you look at multinational companies, they've got data on Excel, they've got data on ERP machines, systems, they've got data in many other places. We need to consolidate all that data in one place, and this is a very big job and big opportunity for young people, and then clean up that data, and then use that data to do predictive analysis and things like that, so then give you what future.
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Next up was Jyotsna Sharma, CFO and head of IT for Bridgestone Tyres, and how she was seeing AI at the factory floor out of Pune.
TRANSCRIPT
Jyotsna Sharma: So how do you train human behaviour with the use of technology for their own good is one of the cases which I learned recently and I thought it's such a good way to see how we could fund to have a more safe workplace and build in the culture of ethics amongst the shop floor people. Another example I would like to give here quickly is if you know the past, since I belong to the finance function primarily, having 35 years of experience over, and I've seen every era, right from the telematic machine where you used to key in the numbers till today, where you talk about AI and the data gets analysed. Now, there is one simple thing and you all must have all known the case of Metas or Satyam, where bank balance confirmations were not received timely and how it led to such a big scam.
Now, this is a very common thing that every auditor, the best of auditors, big force, sends an account confirmation statement to our dealers, customers, to get confirmation of the balances that the sales have. Now, 99% of the time, you never get back the confirmation. That's my experience in 30 years.
Now, just imagine we have progressed. Now, we have automated confirmations going. There are tools which say that, yes, this is the balance with us, but what?
If there were multiple APIs generated whereby on a daily basis, an outstanding mail is triggered through the ERPs or through other systems that you're using, and it goes to impact the Sibyl rating in that case. Now, all of this would lead to such a high level of governance and monitoring. So, these are small use cases.
Beyond what we see, there is a lot more possibility of analytics. So, moving from the legacy approach towards working, towards a more liberal way of working because liberating yourself by doing this repetitive task which doesn't add value, but to focus on the outcomes is what the future is going to be towards. So, I see a huge, huge shift going to be happening in every industry and particularly in the world of finance whereby the use cases are more going to be driving decisions out of the outcomes.
It's going to be more autonomous, and we will see a lot more coming up with the use cases in future.
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And Sandhya Shekhar, who sits on the board of several auto companies in India, from her perspective, and also an interesting case study of a medical application.
TRANSCRIPT
Sandhya Shekar: So, that has to be essentially the starting point. And even in the automotive sector, we are seeing companies attempting to identify which are the areas where we're already geared up to be able to introduce AI in a way that the potential benefits exceed the flip side of introducing it and causing fundamental changes within the organisation. And that's why, especially for youngsters like all of you, there is a huge big opportunity because you're not straddled with what already exists.
Let me give you a specific example, for instance. In our own Indian innovation ecosystem, we have a company called Vyha MedData. What it does is it's into cervical cancer screening.
So, it takes the slide samples for liquid cytology, converts it into digital assets. And AI is used to detect cell anomalies so that the detection rate and the validity of the diagnosis is much, much higher than what used to be done earlier. Imagine the huge value proposition to the customer.
What used to be reliant on manual mechanisms, despite good technology in terms of microscopes and others, is now actually left to carefully designed AI algorithms to be able to detect anomalies at a very, very early stage. So, this is really huge. And here we have a case where you're building a whole organisation around a possibility that is created around AI.
So, that's one way to go.
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And Norbert Fernandes, a venture fund investor, on how he spots opportunities in the AI space and also what he's careful about.
TRANSCRIPT
Norbert Fernandes: Yeah, so, you know, as an investor, there are a couple of ways to look at it. One is, of course, how does it impact me running my own firm? So, today, already, we are able to stitch together a bunch of off-the-shelf AI tools to make our own decision process much leaner and, you know, effectively get to a 90, 95% accuracy answer or output level of, you know, a two to three member investment analyst team.
That's like a direct impact on how we work. But more importantly, how does AI impact how we think about the companies of the future that will create value? Here, I think, we think along two tracks here.
One is companies that are using AI for specific efficiency gains within existing workflows. And there's an art to doing that also. It's not easy.
But doing that, and I think several examples have been raised here already, will create value. There's no question about it. But there's a second type of company that we're also very focused on, are, you know, whenever there's a large fundamental transformational technology that, you know, becomes very real in terms of capability, new business models get unlocked.
Fundamentally new business models. Think of it like Amazon when the internet came. It was a business model that was not possible before the internet.
Or an Uber before mobile technology came. Again, a business model that was just not possible before that. So what kind of business model gets unlocked with AI now?
It's hard to imagine today. It's almost like something sitting at the intersection of art and technology. What is that business model of the future, which today we cannot think of?
We're keenly looking at that kind of activity. And all of that, a lot of that stuff is coming from, you know, folks like y'all. Youngsters sitting out there who don't have the baggage that we do in terms of technology, in terms of business models.
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And finally, Lakshmi Chandrasekharan, the Chief Human Resource Officer, or CHRO, of Accenture in India, and how she is helping build the talent pipeline that will drive all these AI efforts in Accenture and, in turn, for other companies.
TRANSCRIPT
Lakshmi Chandrasekharan: If I was to kind of build on Nilesh's example of supply chain and kind of translate into an example, say from within Accenture, for us our biggest supply is talent, right? If I look at the supply chain model and say internally talent supply, how do I ensure not just my demand is connected in a way to the supply, knowing what the skills are of the people? Earlier it was easy because I could just match supply to demand and I'm done, right?
Staffing decisions get taken that way. With agentic, what I'm able to now do, my autonomous agents are able to kind of, I talk to people, understand what their aspirations are, help them understand what training they need to pick up to pick up, to get staffed onto that aspirational job, connect them to those resources, feed that back into their resume because then they are seen as ready to take on this job, then match that supply to the demand. It's a big shift.
It's no longer just an efficiency shift, it's an experience shift, it's acting as a career counsellor almost. So I look at all of these paradigms. We also have, I mean, I'm a little more optimistic than you Norbert about the leverage of technology because I think people absolutely, and I love that quote that you talked about, people have to think about not what AI is gonna do to them, but what AI is gonna do for them and how can I leverage technology to augment my own creativity?
So the big shift, number one, is for people to learn to work with technology. You're gonna have autonomous agents directing not just other agents, but other humans as well in the future as they get baked into the workflow. So how do you work collaboratively with humans and technology is gonna be one big shift, which leads me to what organisations are not doing enough of today, which is investing in the human capital.
Seven out of 10 organisations and CEOs that we speak to, are investing significantly in technology, but not enough in their people. Skilling people, and this is very different technology from in the past where you could just train your technology department on the technology and be done. AI is so much more pervasive, you need to invest in ensuring this AI literacy across 100% of our organisation, and that's a journey we've been on for a long time.
We've gone with more than 70,000 of our people are AI fundamental trained, more than 50,000 of our professionals in Accenture globally are experts in AI. But that is a critical investment, not just in a particular department, but across the breadth of the organisation.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And your target would be 350,000 people in India, what's your?
Lakshmi Chandrasekharan: No, I'm talking about 780,000 people globally. So that would be the target audience that we're looking at, because everybody else is not India only, we kind of pull in talent from across different countries. So that's number one, which is how do you make sure your 100% of your organisation is AI conversant, literate, and then you have deep technologist specialists as well.
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