Vibe meets value: AI coding prompts multi-million workflows

As India’s $280 billion tech services industry warms up to ‘vibe coding,’ its 5.4 million-strong workforce is emerging as a multi-million revenue opportunity for AI code generators.

Among large enterprises, Tata Consultancy Services, this week provisioned access to top AI models, tools and websites for its 600,000 employees. Infosys and Wipro opened a GitHub Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru. At Infosys, over 18,000 developers have generated more than 7 million lines of code from Copilot, it said. Hexaware Technologies has partnered with coding platform Replit and HCLTech with OpenAI. Cognizant chief Ravi Kumar S recently told ET that 20% of the company’s code is now written with the help of AI. 

Vibe coding uses conversational language to develop software with the help of AI assistants.

The results are already showing—Microsoft’s AI coding assistant GitHub Copilot surpassed an all-time high 20 million users at June-end and is growing 75% on-quarter among enterprise customers. GitHub Copilot is now a larger business than all of GitHub was when Microsoft had acquired it in 2018, CEO Satya Nadella had said.

India is not just a consumer market but a battleground for enterprise-scale deployment of these coding tools. Just like ChatGPT introduced its cheapest consumer plan, analysts expect vendors to design India-specific, go-to-market strategies with special pricing, local support and integration.

“The true opportunity isn’t just the projected market size (this year) for the AI start-ups, it’s the multiplier effect when embedded inside India’s IT/BPM services engine,” said Arun Chandrasekaran, distinguished VP and analyst at Gartner.

He pointed out that even modest adoption levels of 20–30% could translate to millions of AI-assisted coders, “radically compressing project timelines and shifting billing models. Platforms aren’t just selling ‘tools’ but becoming the backbone of a new paradigm of software development and gaining mindshare.” 

“The fact that Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech, Cognizant, and Hexaware are all building formal programs shows that this is no longer optional,” said Phil Fersht, CEO and chief analyst at HfS group, adding that in the next 12-18 months, vibe coding will become as standard in IT services delivery as Agile or DevOps.

“The recent world-record hackathon, sponsored by Cognizant, with 53,000 participants and 30,000 prototypes shows that vibe coding is not just hype. It is industrialising at scale. This is the world’s largest developer base turning GenAI into muscle memory,” he said.

Biswajeet Mahapatra, principal analyst at Forrester, agreed, noting that adoption is being driven by digital transformation initiatives and the demand for faster, higher-quality software.

“The market for AI code tools in India is on a rapid growth trajectory,” he said. “Integration of AI in development processes represents a lucrative and expanding segment.”

ChatGPT’s India-specific plan is an early signal that pricing and packaging will be localised to capture scale in cost-sensitive markets, Chandrasekaran said. However, he cautioned that the lack of local presence for startups and pricing dilemmas could slow down adoption.

As of now, only OpenAI has stated the intention to open its first India office in New Delhi, while GitHub already has a large presence through Microsoft. Others such as Anthropic (Claude Code), Cursor, Replit and Lovable have been slow in targeting Indian enterprises.

Chandrasekaran also noted that enterprise adoption is being hampered by compliance and organizational policies, with much of the usage happening in innovation labs or through “shadow AI.”

Vibe coding may be crossing into the mainstream, but its impact on engineering jobs is too big to overlook. With AI coding assistants now able to auto-generate boilerplate code, debug errors, and even suggest full modules, the demand for entry-level programmers is already under pressure. If even a fraction of those roles are automated away, the ripple effect on campus hiring and wage growth will be significant.