Software firms won’t die, AI models can’t work independently: ServiceNow COO

“AI models are definitely automating various tech processes, and the world is definitely changing—there’s no denying that,” said Amit Zavery, president and chief operating officer of US-based enterprise software maker.

“But, truth be told, enterprises will never simply go and adopt a barebones model for the work they do—they want trust, compliance, a team to fall back on, security, and more than anything else, compatibility with many distributed services in an organization,” he told Mint in an interview. “That is exactly where we come in, even as our core software is modified with AI integration.”

The Santa Clara, California-headquartered ServiceNow competes with the likes of SAP and Salesforce to build software for various processes for companies. It reported $13.3 billion in global revenue in 2025and has nearly 4,000 employees building software from its offices in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. India is its largest technology hub outside of the US.

The company, like all peers, has taken a beating on the bourses. On the New York Stock Exchange, ServiceNow’s shares are down 30% since the start of this year. Zavery, however, feels that the reaction is too sharp, too steep.

“Many investors and audiences are not very well-versed with exactly what these AI models will do, which is what leads to a kind of apprehension that, at times, could be misleading. It’s not that AI models will replace software—in every form of technology shifts, we have seen such concerns,” he said. “For instance, when the world moved from on-premise IT servers to the cloud, many felt that IT managers would lose their jobs. Instead, they evolved to become cloud operations managers—which is actually a higher skill than before.”

The company employs over 29,000 employees worldwide, out of which Zavery maintained that “there is no sector where India does not play a role, or works as a back-office. This will continue to be true.”

The reason for his optimism, Zavery said, is driven by client conversations.

“As we speak with businesses, it is increasingly clear that most enterprises don’t care about the specific capabilities of each and every model. At the end of the day, all they care about is what will reduce their cost the most, and which model will get the job done best, and without disruptions. That’s where we come in, and we see this to be true for most of our clients.”

Enterprises, industry analysts believe, will not see gross disruption immediately. On the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit, Anushree Verma, senior director analyst at Gartner, said most AI companies will focus on client partnerships rather than on specific AI model efficacies.

“Most AI models will depend on how well they perform for businesses. So, it will not just depend on outright disruption, but how well a technology is implemented by enterprises,” she added.

Zavery also has a contrarian take on fresher hiring at technology companies.

“While we do upskill mid- and senior-career engineers, the truth is that most freshers are savvier with the latest technologies, and will increasingly graduate from colleges with natively trained AI skills—instead of having to retrain and readjust what they are good at. We will continue hiring freshers as a result,” he said.

Eventually, he believes that automation will not replace jobs for software makers.

“An engineer only codes for 30-40% of his working time. This means that for the rest of the time, they are thinking, creative professionals who work on foundational software and transformational technologies, since AI anyway automates most of their coding efforts,” Zavery said. “This also means that our engineer base will remain where it is, while more people will work on creating new business software.”