Cognizant's 'Project Leap' to cut 12,000-15,000 jobs, 4-5% of staff, as it shifts to AI delivery

Cognizant has disclosed "Project Leap," a restructuring expected to eliminate 12,000-15,000 positions worldwide, roughly 4-5% of its workforce, with the reductions tied directly to its move toward AI-powered service delivery. Most of the cuts are expected in India, where the company employs more than 250,000 people. The announcement sits alongside a separate pledge to hire 1,500 U.S. college graduates, grow its "Frontier Certified Engineer" and "Frontier Business Operator" ranks to 15,000, and join RAISE US, a coalition seeking $1 billion for worker retraining. CEO Ravi Kumar S said the company believes "AI will create significantly more jobs than it displaces." The gap between that claim and the cuts is the point. IT services firms built their economics on a pyramid of junior engineers, and AI delivery removes the base of it. Oracle and TCS have announced similar AI-linked reductions. Cognizant's own research finds 93% of jobs face some form of AI-driven disruption.