Cognizant committs to scale its ‘Frontier-certified workforce’

Cognizant, the IT services behemoth known for outsourcing anything that isn't nailed down, has announced a plan to 'scale its Frontier-certified workforce' to 5,000 engineers and 10,000 business operators by 2026. Because nothing says 'closing the AI outcome gap' like slapping a new badge on the same consultants and hoping clients don't notice the price hike. One wonders if the 'Frontier' in question is the cutting edge of technology or just the frontier of marketing hype — it's wonderfully ambiguous.

CEO Ravi Kumar S. intones that 'closing the AI outcome gap demands talent that understands client industries and can take end-to-end responsibility' — which is consultant-speak for 'we'll charge you more for the same PowerPoint decks, now with a dash of AI buzzwords.' The term 'Frontier-certified' is wonderfully opaque: is it a frontier of knowledge, or just a frontier the marketing department hasn't bothered to define? And note the typo in the press coverage: 'committs' — even the journalists are losing it.

Meanwhile, actual AI researchers are fleeing labs over safety concerns, but hey, Cognizant is certifying business operators. Who needs alignment when you have a certificate? The 'AI outcome gap' the CEO mentions is likely the gap between what clients pay for and what they get. With these numbers, they're filling that gap with acronyms.