Cognizant Q3 Earnings: ‘We View Agentic AI As The Most Significant Enterprise Opportunity Since Digitization,’ Says CEO

Ravi Kumar said modernization, agentifying core operations, secure AI, and data center and workplace services represent a multibillion-dollar opportunity as Cognizant builds AI deployment capacity at enterprise scale.

Cognizant views agentic AI as the most significant enterprise opportunity since digitization as clients focus on converting artificial intelligence investments into measurable business outcomes, CEO Ravi Kumar said.

Speaking during Cognizant’s third-quarter 2026 earnings call, Ravi Kumar said the company is building the talent, engineering platforms and partner ecosystem required to deploy AI at enterprise scale and capture more of the value between AI intelligence and the enterprise.

“In summary, we view agentic AI as the most significant enterprise opportunity since digitization, and clients are increasingly focused on converting their AI investments into measurable business outcomes,” Kumar said.

Cognizant identifies four strategic growth priorities emerging from AI disruption including modernization, agentifying core business operations, secure AI, and data center and workplace services.

“Together, we believe these represent a multibillion-dollar opportunity in the years ahead,” Kumar said.

Kumar said over 50 percent of the company’s software development is AI-assisted as of the end of Q3, while Cognizant has over 8,500 AI engagements.

The company is also seeing changes in its own operating metrics. Revenue per associate, excluding GenC trainees, increased over 3 percent, while adjusted operating income per associate increased more than 5 percent, according to Kumar.

Cognizant Builds AI Deployment Capacity

Kumar said major technology transitions historically require companies to build the capacity to deploy new technologies at scale, and Cognizant is taking a similar approach to AI across talent, engineering platforms and partnerships.

Over 45,000 Cognizant associates have earned over 95,000 certifications across frontier AI platforms, with another 65,000-plus associates in progress.

The company is also expanding its Google Cloud partnership through a Gemini Frontier Capability Group, which includes more than 18,000 dedicated Cognizant associates focused on legacy modernization, developer experience, autonomous business processes and Frontier Cyber Defense.

Kumar said over 55,000 associates completed Build with Gemini, which he describes as the largest Gemini partner workshop to date.

Cognizant is also deploying SkillSpring, its AI-native learning platform, internally. Kumar said the platform is used by approximately 315,000 associates, while the company is also making it available to clients and building a pipeline of opportunities.

The company’s AI Builder strategy focuses on redesigning work around AI, engineering enterprise-grade AI systems, helping clients build the capacity to absorb AI, and giving enterprises greater control over AI deployment and institutional intelligence.

AI Changes Services Economics And Commercial Models

Kumar said AI is creating opportunities across three areas. These include AI-led productivity and autonomous software engineering, performing existing work in fundamentally different ways, and creating services, platforms and operating models that were not previously possible.

He said these opportunities increase Cognizant’s total addressable spend and create new avenues for growth.

The transition is also changing how the company approaches commercial models.

As human and digital labor converge, Kumar said Cognizant sees opportunities for outcome-based pricing, AI-infused rate cards and platform monetization.

Fixed-price and transaction-based work accounted for nearly 58 percent of Cognizant’s Q3 revenue, an increase of 140 basis points year over year and more than 500 basis points from the third quarter of 2022.

The company is also extending its AI capabilities into the mid-market through Cognizant Activate, a new business unit designed to provide enterprise-grade AI transformation to emerging, high-growth companies.

Modernization Becomes A Strategic AI Opportunity

Modernization is the first of the four growth areas Cognizant identified.

Kumar said AI is changing the speed and economics of modernizing legacy technology, data and enterprise applications.

Cognizant recently expanded its relationship with Gilead Sciences through a five-year agreement that includes the responsible application of agentic AI across selected programs.

At Travelport, the company completed the first phase of an AI transformation program announced with Anthropic in May, establishing the platforms, architecture and engineering practices required for AI-enabled delivery.

Kumar also pointed to Odyssey Logistics as an example of how autonomous AI engineering can change the economics of technology modernization.

A seven-person Cognizant team used Cognition’s Devin AI software engineer for legacy conversion work supporting the OdysseyONE platform.

According to the Q3 release, delivery throughput increased by roughly a third and Odyssey Logistics recorded a 37 percent net cost saving compared with the conventional approach.

Cognizant Targets Core Business Operations With AI Agents

Agentifying core business operations represented the second strategic growth priority.

Kumar said Cognizant initially plans to concentrate on bounded workflows characterized by structured inputs, measurable outcomes, high transaction volumes and short feedback loops.

Initial focus areas include long-term care, mortgage operations, drug safety and pharmacovigilance, insurance operations and what Kumar called the frontier finance function.

In healthcare, Cognizant introduced agentic workflow processing for its TriZetto platforms, allowing AI agents to process eligible routine pending claims while sending exceptions and complex cases to human reviewers when additional judgement is required.

Kumar also pointed to Talcott, where Cognizant embedded governed AI across requirements, design, engineering, testing and implementation as part of a next-generation policy administration platform.

According to Kumar, the program delivered 30 percent productivity gains.

At SITA, Cognizant is helping build what Kumar describes as a frontier finance function on a modern cloud platform spanning finance, procurement and supply chain.

Secure AI Emerges As Third Growth Priority

As enterprises embed AI deeper into systems and workflows, Ravi Kumar said trust and security become prerequisites for adoption at scale.

Secure AI therefore becomes Cognizant’s third strategic growth priority.

Kumar said cybersecurity is the company’s fastest-growing service line, with Cognizant building capabilities through its Neuro AI Trust platform and Frontier Cyber Defense workforce.

As an inaugural member of OpenAI’s Daybreak Cyber Partner program, the company combines frontier AI models with security capabilities, governance and human oversight to support vulnerability identification and validation of fixes.

Cognizant is also expanding its work with CrowdStrike, incorporating the Falcon platform into the Cognizant AI Factory and its managed cybersecurity services.

AI Infrastructure Opens Data Center Opportunity

Data center and workplace services make up the fourth strategic growth priority.

“The trillions of dollars being spent on AI infrastructure build-out creates opportunities across data center operations, networks, AI environments, and digital workplace services,” Kumar said.

He said the Astreya acquisition strengthened Cognizant’s ability to address the market, with the company seeing early momentum during the quarter, including an expanded engagement with Google.

Beyond the four priorities, Cognizant is building capabilities around physical AI.

Kumar said the company signed an agreement with one of North America’s largest utility companies to deploy its Cognizant Intelligence Spine and Autonomous All Domain Awareness platforms for utilities.

The deployment aims to combine sensor, vision and edge intelligence into a real-time view to support wildfire prevention, grid safety and multi-agent coordination and field response.

Financial Services Grows 12 Percent

The AI strategy develops alongside continued revenue and adjusted-margin growth.

Cognizant reported Q3 revenue of $5.664 billion, increasing 4.6 percent year over year and 4.8 percent in constant currency.

Financial services revenue grew 12 percent year over year, marking its third consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, according to Kumar.

Adjusted operating margin reached 16.3 percent, up 30 basis points year over year and marking the seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year adjusted operating-margin expansion. GAAP operating margin, however, declined 60 basis points to 15.4 percent.

Trailing 12-month bookings reached $28.7 billion, increasing 4 percent year over year, with a book-to-bill of approximately 1.3x. Q3 bookings, however, declined 7 percent year over year.

The company signed three large deals with total contract value (TCV) of more than $100 million each during the quarter, while Kumar said trailing 12-month TCV from large deals grew 9 percent year over year.

Kumar said the company delivered the quarter’s results in a complex demand environment.

While macroeconomic conditions remained largely stable during Q3, he said macro uncertainty is weighing more heavily on discretionary spending in Q4, particularly across healthcare and consumer-facing sectors.

For full-year 2026, Cognizant expects revenue of $22.05 billion to $22.14 billion, representing constant-currency growth of 4 percent to 4.4 percent. Adjusted operating margin is expected at approximately 16.1 percent, while adjusted diluted EPS is expected between $5.72 and $5.79.

As Cognizant builds AI deployment capacity across talent, platforms and its partner ecosystem, Kumar said the opportunity increasingly centers on helping enterprises move AI into production and connect deployments with measurable business outcomes.

“We believe our AI Builder strategy expands the opportunity ahead and opens multiple avenues for growth, particularly across the four strategic priorities I outlined today,” he said.

This article originally appeared on CRN sister website CRN India.