CEOs of Cognizant and Uniphore on AI Adoption: A Fortt Knox Update

Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar and Uniphore CEO Umesh Sachdev told Jon Fortt about their partnership building industry-specific small language models. Kumar's contrarian thesis: hire MORE entry-level workers (15K→20K→25K grads, 2024–26) as AI becomes an "equalizer" lifting up the bottom of the pyramid. Sachdev: most CEOs are slashing entry-level — a flawed model. Proof: insurance claims 27→3 min; the KPMG/Uniphore deal puts 700 AI agents on 1.2M invoices.