The company works across sectors including automotive, healthcare, transportation, media and communications, manufacturing, renewables and energy, and industrial products.
Physical AI is already being deployed across industries, but the technology is still at an early stage and companies need to focus on applying existing capabilities to specific business problems rather than chasing the next frontier, according to Aditya S Chikodi, Vice President and Head, Industrial Design, Engineering & XR at Tata Elxsi.
“Physical AI is happening now and there is a long journey to go,” Chikodi said in an interview, adding that Tata Elxsi’s immediate focus is on using technologies across the AI ecosystem to deliver business value for customers.
For Tata Elxsi, the opportunity lies in applying AI and physical AI in the context of different industries and their specific use cases, rather than treating the technology as a standalone capability.
The company works across sectors including automotive, healthcare, transportation, media and communications, manufacturing, renewables and energy, and industrial products. Chikodi said this industry exposure is important because the way AI is deployed needs to be shaped by the underlying problem and domain.
“The frontier is so wide today that it’s very difficult to say that I’ve already figured this out and hence I’m going to jump on something else,” he said.
AI integration is still at an early stage
Chikodi said the integration of AI into engineering and business workflows is still at an early stage, despite the rapid adoption of generative AI and agentic systems.
Tata Elxsi has been working with AI-related technologies for years, including applications involving personalisation, signal processing and algorithms used in areas such as communications, media and embedded systems. The company is now bringing those capabilities together with newer AI technologies.
“The integration of AI is just starting,” Chikodi said.
The company is also working with semiconductor vendors and AI ecosystem providers to identify how existing technologies can be used to solve customer problems. Chikodi said the near- to medium-term focus would remain on leveraging the current technology stack rather than betting exclusively on technologies that are still further out.
Humans remain part of the AI loop
Chikodi also pushed back against the idea that AI will simply allow companies to deliver two or three times the amount of work with the same workforce.
He said AI is more likely to automate repetitive tasks, reduce errors and improve the quality of work, while humans continue to provide oversight. Some jobs could see significant reductions in the time required to complete them, but that does not mean overall engineering output will automatically double or triple.
Instead, he expects existing employees to develop new skills while new roles emerge around areas such as AI quality assurance, prompt engineering and oversight.
Tata Elxsi is already training its engineers in generative AI and advanced AI capabilities. The company has also developed internal tools and AI environments that allow employees to experiment with models, build proofs of concept and develop enterprise applications.
Leave a Reply