Genpact, a 145,000-employee firm registered in Bermuda that runs finance, accounting, sourcing, supply-chain and risk operations on contract for banks, insurers, life-sciences companies and manufacturers, told investors on 6 August that revenue grew 7.1% to $1.343bn in the second quarter, 6.9% excluding currency. That was its fourth consecutive quarter of acceleration, from 5.6% a year ago. Almost all of the increment came from one place: Advanced Technology Solutions — its data, digital and AI agent work — rose 24.1% to $363m, now 27% of the company and supplying roughly four-fifths of the quarter's added revenue.

Management then raised full-year adjusted earnings-per-share growth guidance to at least 12% and lifted the growth target for that unit to at least 25% from a mid-teens outlook, with full-year gross margin guided to 36.5% and adjusted operating margin to 17.7%. Chief executive Balkrishan Kalra said Genpact expects more than $1bn of total contract value for agentic — self-directing AI — work in 2026, about five times 2025's level, with over half of cumulative agentic awards coming from new clients. That last detail matters more than the headline number: it is the difference between AI bookings that are incremental and AI bookings that are existing work relabelled.

The reported profit and loss agrees. Gross margin reached 36.50% against 35.88% a year earlier, operating income grew 7.5% on 7.1% revenue growth, and net income rose 9.8%. CONFIRMS at Genpact.

The same month, the opposite quarter

Tata Consultancy Services, the Mumbai outsourcer with 584,519 people on file selling application services and its own banking and automation platforms, reported rupee revenue up 13.9% for the June quarter. Strip out the currency and dollar revenue of $7.6bn grew 0.4%, with total contract value of $9.5bn and headcount rising to 593,798. Operating margin fell to 23.96% from 24.46% and net income rose 4.6%. More people, flat real revenue, thinner margin — the arbitrage model working in reverse. CONTRADICTS.

Infosys, the Bengaluru firm with 328,062 staff, cut its constant-currency guidance for the year to March 2027 to 1.5–3.0%, which nets to roughly half a point organically once acquisitions and mix are removed. Management named "deflation" on large-deal renewals — clients demanding productivity give-backs at renewal and increasingly mid-contract — and is hiring 20,000 graduates anyway. Its AI-first revenue reached 8.2% of the total from 5.5% two quarters earlier: real, and not yet big enough to cover the price concessions.

Cognizant, the Teaneck, New Jersey outsourcer with 356,700 employees, is the other name where the business supports the tape. Second-quarter revenue rose 4.5% to $5.481bn with operating income up 7.0%, a sixth consecutive quarter of adjusted operating-margin expansion to 16.0%, and trailing bookings of $29bn up 5%. It raised its 2026 adjusted EPS range to $5.70–$5.82 and authorised a further $2bn of buybacks — while trimming full-year revenue growth to 4–5.5%, of which 150 basis points is acquired. Two days earlier it announced an expanded partnership with Anthropic making it a Global Premier Partner and training over 30,000 staff on Claude.

Accenture, the Dublin firm with 799,000 employees, is the group's problem. Its shares fell a record 18% on 18 June after new bookings of $19.3bn fell 2% year on year, about 13% below the prior quarter, and management cut full-year revenue guidance. Bookings convert to revenue over six to eighteen months, so the revenue deceleration from 8.3% to 5.6% has further to run. Its generative-AI bookings were about $1.5bn in the May quarter against $2.2bn of "advanced AI" bookings in the November quarter alone — an internally defined category no outsider can audit. CONTRADICTS.

Valuation: cheap against their own history, with one exception

Genpact trades at 10.1x trailing and 8.4x forward earnings, 3.03x price-to-gross-profit, on a 9.8% free-cash-flow yield, against implied multiples of 15.1x and 14.9x at its 2024 and 2025 year-ends. Cognizant is at 12.7x and 10.3x against 17.1x and 18.2x at the same two dates. Accenture is at 14.1x and 12.9x against 21.4x to 36.7x at each of its last five August year-ends. Tata Consultancy is at 17.2x and 15.4x against 26.9x at its March 2025 year-end. SUPPORTED in all four.

Infosys is the exception: its forward multiple of 15.9x sits above its trailing 14.95x, because consensus earnings of $0.795 for the year to March 2027 sit below the $0.83 it just reported — the only member where the market models a decline — and its 8.07x price-to-gross-profit is the dearest here against Genpact's 3.03x. STRETCHED.

What actually moved the prices

The rally is not primarily a fundamental re-rating. In July the Nifty IT index gained 16.7% while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 21%, the widest monthly gap since 1999, as money left AI hardware for the outsourcers it had spent a year pricing as AI's first casualties. Gartner, Globant and EPAM moved with them. The trend signals confirmed late and on non-earnings dates — the two Indian listings on 21 July, Genpact on 3 August, three sessions before it reported, Accenture and Cognizant on 7 August — and Accenture and Cognizant now sit 14.4% and 19.6% above their pre-crash June closes, so this is no longer a retracement of the June reset.

The setup

Where it stands — Genpact and Cognizant are growing margins and bookings; Accenture, Infosys and Tata Consultancy are not, and all five re-rated together. Would confirm — Genpact's third-quarter agentic total contract value tracking toward the guided $1bn, with Advanced Technology Solutions growth holding above 25%. Would invalidate — Accenture's August-quarter bookings falling below $19.3bn again, or Infosys trimming its 1.5–3.0% constant-currency guidance further. Watch next — Accenture's fiscal fourth-quarter results in late September; Genpact and Cognizant report third quarters in late October. Valuation — Genpact 10.1x trailing and 8.4x forward, against roughly 15x at each of its last two year-ends.