Wipro invests USD $1 Billion in AI, trains 200,000 employees on GenAI principles with Microsoft Copilot

Artificial Intelligence (AI) dominated conversations in 2023, even showing up as Collins Dictionary’s “Word of the Year.” There is no doubt the technology is at the forefront of many people and businesses minds, but for Wipro, the potential to embed AI into products and technology has been an important part of its business strategy for years. “AI has always been an acute focus area for Wipro,” says Saiprasad Jammulapati, Global Head of the Office of the CIO and CIO for Europe at Wipro. In fact, Wipro has made a USD $1 Billion investment to advance AI proficiency at the company over the next three years and launched an AI program called AI360. 

While Wipro might have a decade of forward-looking technology exploration to draw from, the business still thinks this moment is unique. “We realized that now our customers are ready to meet the moment and embrace AI in their technology landscape,” says Jammulapati. “This is a very pivotal time, and Wipro wants to be a champion of this technology.” Wipro chose to support its AI360 effort with Microsoft Copilot, a productivity solution fueled by AI. “Part of the genesis of our commitment to AI has been our relationship with Microsoft for the past decade,” says Jammulapati. “We see embracing Microsoft Copilot as a strategic vehicle through which we can grow our business and deliver better value to our customers.” 

A responsible AI council establishes Microsoft Copilot use cases for diverse roles 

Wipro, with 240,000 employees operating in 65 countries, is uniquely placed to evaluate the potential of AI tools like Microsoft Copilot to transform how people work. “We are a global enterprise with a varied and unique workforce,” says Jammulapati. To bring the power of AI to that workforce, Wipro leaders first established an AI council to establish the best approach to launching an AI program internally. “Firstly, AI has got to be responsible,” says Jammulapati. In bi-weekly sessions, Wipro leaders drafted a responsible, persona-driven model for how to implement Microsoft Copilot across their global business. “We took a ‘Client Zero’ approach,” explains Jammulapati. “By first using Microsoft Copilot internally, we gained confidence and expertise to help us go to market.” 

Establishing distinct personas, including sales employees, developers, and those in the CTO organization, Wipro discovered that various Microsoft Copilot modules complemented distinct roles. “For example, developers would naturally use GitHub Copilot while sales employees might use Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 to help streamline daily tasks,” says Jammulapati. No matter the persona, Wipro employees were enthusiastic about the new AI capabilities at their disposal. “We have trained 200,000 employees on GenAI through our AI training program in just six months to pave the way for large scale adoption. We were able to drive interest and enthusiasm amongst the teams through a robust internal campaign to drive home the message that these tools help us be more efficient and become more proficient,” says Jammulapati. 

The key to the success of the AI360 program at Wipro was a push from leadership to ensure Microsoft Copilot was positioned as a beneficial business tool rather than a novelty. “It’s easy to get excited about new technology,” says Jammulapati. “But it was very important for Wipro to think about things like ROI, barrier to entry, and creating tangible, productive business cases.” Today, Wipro employees using Microsoft Copilot refer to evaluation criteria created by its AI council. “The majority of use cases for Microsoft Copilot are approved, because they have very tangible outcomes. In the case of GitHub Copilot, for example, the code acceptance ratio is at 22.65% at an organizational level,” says Jammulapati. As a mark of Wipro’s commitment to AI, yearly account planning exercises now include key questions about the use of AI to increase outcomes. “It’s now a function of improving what you can do as a professional, a group, or a team,” says Jammulapati. 

Embracing Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 as a “constant companion” 

For Jammulapati, using AI capabilities throughout the day is one way to scale a professional’s most finite resource–time. “Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 is like a clock for me,” he says. “I start my day summarizing emails and upcoming meetings in Outlook, then I use Power BI Copilot to summarize some of my data crunching activities. Throughout the day, it is a constant companion.” Jammulapati has noted that he can get more done using Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365. “I have personally seen a productivity benefit,” he says. But time savings are just one aspect of how Wipro employees use Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 to work better. “When I save time on mundane tasks, I can spend that much more time on improving the quality aspects of my outcome,” says Jammulapati. 

Across Wipro, Copilot in Microsoft Teams has been well-received. “We have a large hybrid workforce and Copilot in Teams has been a big success,” says Jammulapati. “The tool is incredible in how it creates multilingual messages and converts communications into actionable items.” Copilot in Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word are other well-used AI capabilities within the Microsoft 365 suite, and developers are reporting good experiences with GitHub Copilot. Jammulapati has been particularly impressed by Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365’s ability to learn. “It's adapting, and it's also understanding my expectations,” he says. “And based on that learning, it is able to custom curate content for me. I can see Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 creating better quality output incrementally every time.” 

Exploring new dimensions to Microsoft Copilot for security and extensibility

After the early success of Wipro’s AI360 program and the Microsoft Copilot training effort, the company is exploring other aspects of the Microsoft Copilot offering, including Microsoft Security Copilot. “My team and I have started experimenting with Microsoft Security Copilot to gain insights into events related to security,” says Jammulapati. While it’s still early in Wipro’s use of Microsoft Security Copilot, confidence in the tool’s ability to help employees save time and act fast is high.

Wipro is also in the early stages of collaborating with Microsoft to explore Microsoft Copilot extensibility via the Microsoft Copilot Studio. “We have begun to look at how we can use the Microsoft Copilot Studio to embed a generative AI Copilot within an existing application in Wipro,” Jammulapati shares. “It’s very early, but because of the built-in extensibility framework of Microsoft Copilot, we have already had some wins.” Adding the power of AI to business applications represents an area of huge potential for Wipro. Says Jammulapati, “I am really excited about the concept that, with the right partnership and the right technology, we can make an existing application more impactful.” For now, teaming up with Microsoft to understand the potential of AI tools to boost business value is a key part of the company’s AI360 effort. “With Microsoft Copilot, we gain agility on our AI journey because so much of the security guardrails and technology framework is already in place. That helps us deliver value faster,” concludes Jammulapati.

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