Business Intelligence
Indian IT Sector Feels The AI Heat As $50 Billion Vanishes
Updated on Fri, Feb 13, 2026
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TL;DR
- Indian IT stocks lost nearly $50 billion this February due to AI fears.
- The Nifty IT index saw its worst weekly fall in over 10 months.
- Some fear AI will hurt outsourcing, while others say the market reaction is too strong.
India’s IT sector is going through a tough phase this February. Fears around AI have shaken investor confidence, wiping out nearly $50 billion from the market value of Indian IT companies this month. The pressure increased this week, with IT stocks recording their worst weekly fall in more than 10 months.
The concerns started after tech startup Anthropic launched a new AI tool last month. That move triggered a global tech sell-off and raised fresh questions about how fast generative AI could change the way companies use IT services. Many investors now worry that AI tools might reduce the demand for traditional outsourcing work, which is a key part of India’s $283 billion IT industry.
For the week, the Nifty IT index fell 8.2%, its sharpest drop since April 2025. On Friday, the index dropped as much as 5.2% during the day before recovering slightly to close 1.44% lower.
Major companies saw declines. Tata Consultancy Services fell 2.1%, Infosys dropped 1.2%, and HCLTech slipped 1.4%.
Analysts at J.P. Morgan flagged investor concerns that India's IT firms could miss growth targets as AI pushes clients to reallocate spending.
Sat Duhra, portfolio manager at Henderson Far East Income, said IT companies probably haven't done the greatest job in terms of communicating how they can turn AI into an opportunity rather than a threat.
However, some experts believe the reaction may be too strong. Friday’s partial recovery happened because some investors saw lower stock prices as a good buying opportunity.
Centrum Broking's Piyush Pandey said, "Investors have largely over-reacted to the threat posed by these AI tools. It is important to note that IT companies remain relevant even in the age of AI, albeit with a leaner headcount."
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JP Morgan also said it’s "overly simplistic" to assume that AI can automatically generate enterprise grade software and replace the value IT Services firms create across the cycle.
"IT Services companies remain the plumbers in the tech world, and if enterprise software/SaaS is rewritten on a bespoke basis by agents - it will need significant services plumbing to work in enterprise context and minimise AI slop,” morgan noted.
For now, uncertainty remains. The big question is how quickly Indian IT companies can adjust to the AI wave and show that they still play an important role in the tech world.
First published on Fri, Feb 13, 2026
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