Cognizant Commits Over 25K Professionals To OpenAI Delivery

Cognizant has formed an OpenAI Frontier Capability Group, bringing together more than 25,000 professionals to deliver OpenAI products, including Codex and ChatGPT, to clients. The group will help enterprises apply OpenAI models to software development, customer service and day-to-day business operations.

The move comes as enterprises look beyond access to AI models and focus on the skills needed to integrate them into business systems. Cognizant said more than 21,000 of its associates have earned over 40,000 OpenAI badges. Each badge is awarded after completing a learning track on OpenAI technologies.

The new group will focus on building and supporting OpenAI-powered systems for clients. Its work is expected to draw on Cognizant’s Frontier workforce model, which is developing Frontier Certified Engineers and Frontier Business Operators. These professionals receive credentials directly from frontier-model companies.

Cognizant also uses new technologies within its own operations before taking them to clients. Its sales and customer success teams already use a solution built on OpenAI models to identify and pursue new business opportunities. The company said this gives the group methods tested at scale within a global enterprise.

“Over the last 50 years, every shift in enterprise technology has changed who builds the systems and how. With Codex and ChatGPT, OpenAI is changing both at once. We are committing more than 25,000 of our people to bring that change inside our clients’ businesses. We started with our own, and OpenAI is beginning to reshape how we sell,” said Ravi Kumar S, CEO of Cognizant.

Adding to this, Dali Rajic, Chief Revenue Officer, OpenAI, said, “OpenAI is helping businesses fundamentally rethink how they operate, from the way they serve customers to how they get work done. By bringing together more than 25,000 professionals in a dedicated OpenAI practice and putting our technology to work across its own operations, Cognizant is helping more enterprises turn AI into meaningful business impact.”

The group will initially focus on three areas: AI-native software engineering with Codex, application modernisation and agentic customer operations.

Codex will support engineers as they write, test and ship new code. For application modernisation, the group will use Cognizant Application Modernizer, powered by OpenAI models, across the full lifecycle. This includes reverse engineering legacy mainframe code and generating cloud-native code.

Engineers will review every consequential decision. Cognizant will draw on its experience in modernising mainframe systems for more than 500 clients.

The third focus area is customer operations. The group will apply OpenAI models to sales, service and support, drawing on Cognizant’s experience using the technology in its own business.

Cognizant is already working with clients in this area. At a global biopharmaceutical company, it co-engineered an OpenAI-powered enterprise assistant that brings search, content creation, translation and approvals into one place. The solution has handled more than 5 million conversations and reduced content creation time by 60%.

Cognizant is one of a select group of Advanced partners in the OpenAI Partner Network. Its Codex hackathons in India and the Americas brought together more than 12,000 participants.