Over 50% of our internal system code will be AI-generated: Nachiket Deshpande, LTIMindtree

In an exclusive interview with Express Computer, Nachiket Deshpande, Chief Operating Officer, LTIMindtree, shares insights on how their Cyber Defence and Response Centre (CDRC) is transforming the approach to cybersecurity, moving beyond traditional defences to leverage AI and GenAI for real-time threat management. He discusses the integration of generative AI (GenAI) into their security operations, emphasising how it drastically improves incident response times. Deshpande also sheds light on the company’s strategic partnerships, including their collaboration with GitHub, their investment in Voicing AI, and the adoption of AI internally across various departments.

How does this CDRC address the evolving cyber threat landscape? And, what role does it play in safeguarding enterprise resources?

This CDRC isn’t our first, but it’s certainly our most modern and largest. The purpose of the CDRC is to adopt a modern approach to security. In today’s world, you can’t just build bigger walls to defend against threats because breaches are inevitable. Instead, the focus is on how quickly we can isolate, eliminate, and actively hunt threats once a breach occurs.

The CDRC is less about monitoring and more about incident remediation and active threat hunting. We’ve made recent investments in security, allowing us to leapfrog over conventional SOC solutions to AI-embedded tools. We approach cybersecurity with “AI for security” and “security for AI.” AI for security helps us manage the increasing volume, sophistication, and speed of attacks, ensuring a faster response time for threat isolation and remediation.

This CDRC provides these AI-enhanced security solutions to both our internal operations and enterprise clients. We have a dedicated floor for LTI Mindtree’s security operations and another that offers the same capabilities to clients across various industries globally, with our team working flexibly between both.

With the integration of GenAI, how do this CDRC go beyond traditional AI applications to deliver unmatched cybersecurity solutions for enterprises?

The integration of GenAI offers two significant advancements in cybersecurity. Firstly, while traditional AI has been effective in detecting anomalies and isolating incidents, GenAI enhances the ability to identify new threat signatures during the first occurrence of an incident, something conventional AI couldn’t do. Instead of relying on repeated incidents to learn, GenAI can address threats in real time. Secondly, GenAI, combined with co-pilot adoption, has dramatically improved our incident response times. Previously, it took around 24 hours to isolate and eliminate a threat. Now, with GenAI and co-pilot, we can do it in just two minutes, thanks to its ability to ingest logs, investigate, summarise, and recommend actions quickly, boosting productivity significantly.

How does this recent partnership with GitHub align with your broader AI strategy, and what are the expected outcomes for the enterprise clients?

Our AI strategy is simple and built on three pillars. The first is “AI in everything,” meaning we integrate AI into every service we offer. For example, AI is used in security, cloud services, SAP support, marketing technology, and more.

We follow a platform approach, incorporating multiple technology solutions, and have integrated about 40 LLM services. We work with various platforms like ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, Amazon AWS, and Google. The key is flexibility. Since each client uses different technologies, we can’t demand they switch. Our solutions are tech-agnostic, meaning they adapt to the client’s existing systems.

However, we do co-innovate with partners for joint solutions. For instance, with Microsoft, we developed a joint solution for Security Copilot, and with Cisco SSE, we created a shared go-to-market strategy. While we collaborate closely with certain partners, we ensure our platform remains adaptable, responding to client needs without being tied to specific technologies.

Also, could you elaborate more about the strategic investment in Voicing AI?

The strategy I mentioned revolves around “everything for AI,” which encompasses all the supplementary capabilities needed to make AI use cases a reality in enterprises. This ranges from infrastructure, like GPU availability, to data governance, data tagging, model management, and agent frameworks. In the agent framework space, there is global innovation, but we don’t have the capital to build every type of agent solution ourselves.

Instead, we’ve chosen to partner with innovative solutions and allow them to continue accessing capital for further development. Full acquisitions would mean the burden of raising capital falls on us, which doesn’t align with our services model. So, a significant strategic investment allows us to be aligned while giving them the freedom to innovate.

That’s what we’ve done with Voicing, an agent framework for voice-based agents that supports 20 languages. It’s sophisticated technology, capable of handling empathy, human emotions, and interruptions, with use cases that are impressive—even a bit eerie during demos. We are already working with six or seven customers on proof of concept.

How are you incorporating AI and GenAI in your internal workforce? What impact are you experiencing?

We approach AI and GenAI by adopting it internally before advising clients. I am the first to test it across various use cases, making us our own “customer zero.” We incorporate AI in processes like legal, HR, finance, support, delivery excellence, and coding. In fact, over 50% of our internal system code will be AI-generated.

Will that have any negative impact on the workforce?

No, we don’t think so. But in general, I believe that the rate of growth from an employee based perspective may not be the same as it was before. However, whenever such changes occur, new types of roles also tend to emerge.

With significant growth reported in regions like the Middle-East, what is your approach to capitalising on opportunities in emerging markets?

In emerging markets, which for us include India, the Middle East, Japan, and ASEAN, we’re approaching each region differently. In India, being part of the L&T group, we’ve always had a presence and will continue to be selective about our projects here, maintaining the same strategy. Over the past three years, we’ve heavily invested in the Middle East, particularly with our Aramco JV in Saudi Arabia, where we’ve seen fantastic growth. KSA has become our fastest-growing region, and we believe the opportunity there is immense. We’re also exploring Japan, which is a very different market, and have started investing in Australia. While these markets are still developing for us, we expect them to mature in the next year or two.