The world of work is changing faster than ever, and machine intelligence is at the centre of this change. Most recently, artificial intelligence (AI) has played a leading role in the fight against Covid-19. Scientists have used AI to help predict future outbreak zones, sift through research, and even run simulations on drugs to determine their efficacy.

It's safe to say most aspects of life will be quite different after the global coronavirus pandemic ends. A new report, "After the Virus" from digital firm Cognizant, looks at just how different things will be, from national politics to socioeconomics, work, business, and well, life in general.

Cognizant head of industries for Australia and New Zealand, Gaurav Sharma said Australians are already spending more time online than usual, and as Click Frenzy drives traffic to websites, retailers must facilitate smooth e-commerce experiences.

After the coronavirus pandemic, the world will be quite different. Whether the lockdowns last weeks or months, very little will remain unchanged. In a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19, governments around the world have instituted health monitoring policies, leveraging GPS and other data from a variety of personal devices.

Having visibility of your own skills, including level of expertise allows you to be aware of your evolution and measure your growth, your professional profile. You set your goals to develop autonomy, and measure… While making constant, incremental improvements.

Premankur Roy Paladhi shared these recommendations: “To cope with the coronavirus pandemic, consumer goods and retail organisations need a robust business continuity plan (BCP), one that is based on a holistic supply chain strategy and built on flexible and strong digital foundations. Any BCP should anticipate disruptions and provide proactive recommendations to keep pace with fluctuating demand and fulfilment cycles.

Countries around APAC are starting to phase slowly back into normalcy with additional safety measures like COVID-19 tracking apps for citizens. However traditional businesses have had to adapt to new realities of a post-virus world and the implications for CIOs will be profound. The days of the IT department being responsible for infrastructure and operations, with a relentless focus on cost reduction, are gone.

In a recent report forecasting life after the virus, Cognizant's Center for the Future of Work envisioned the creation of a massive Health Security Agency that would mandate automated illness scanning for any building, space or country.

“5G will help realise the benefits from the evolving IoT environment, including the development in endpoint devices such as environmental and situational sensors, vehicles, wearables, drones, robots, and virtual reality equipment,” says Rohit Gupta, vice president and head of manufacturing, logistics, energy and utilities, Europe at Cognizant.

“Inclusive leaders recognize the realities of what it means to work virtually and the need to be flexible," says Ben Pring, Director of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work.

Cognizant CEO Brian Humphries says the restructuring done last year has helped the company lay the path for M&As and a better standing in the cloud technology market, despite a difficult business climate this year due to Covid-19. Edited excerpts of an interview with ET.

In a Q&A, Brian Humphries says his firm has handled the ransomware attack well and doesn't see any impact on client engagement.

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp on Friday posted revenues of $4.2 billion for the first quarter ended March, up 3.5% year-on-year in constant currency. In an interview, Brian Humphries, chief executive officer, spoke about growth drivers, demand environment and its strategy to sail through the covid-19 crisis.

When it comes to the 5G roll-out, AI will definitely be supercharged. Smart, AI-based devices that operate at the edge for buildings, cities, and vehicles, can make complex decisions in real-time based on the data they see.

With healthcare organizations focused on battling COVID-19, the recent federal healthcare regulation requiring data interoperability may have become an afterthought. However, compliance with this rule will create a powerful tool for fighting COVID-19 recurrences and future pandemics.

After the coronavirus global pandemic, the world will be quite different. Whether the current lockdown lasts weeks or months, very little will remain unchanged by COVID-19. A special report from Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work, After the Virus: A Special Report Looking Back on the Next Five Years, explores the most probable shifts across healthcare, education, retail, travel, technology, and government as the world becomes more connected and virtual.

The show must go on: Even as COVID-19 inflicts a new, jolting reality on business operations worldwide, this has become the new charge for COOs and CIOs everywhere. In my conversations over the past few weeks with manufacturing clients, I have learned a lot about how businesses are coping with the sudden onset of change and how – as these new practices are followed, enhanced, and supported – they could end up accelerating enterprise modernisation in the long run.

Forward-looking businesses are offloading data centre maintenance and management to the cloud to keep things running during the covid-19 pandemic. Raja Renganathan, vice president at Cognizant and head of Cloud Services Business takes a closer look at what it takes to keep things ticking over during lockdown.

Just as Y2K served as an inflection point for the IT services industry, businesses are now going through another period of significant change and opportunity, says Cognizant’s Humphries, in an interview with Forbes India.

More than a dozen doctors employed with technology major Cognizant for its healthcare and life sciences practice in Mumbai have volunteered to be a part of a telephonic helpline for addressing questions on COVID-19.

This article was first published in the Spring 2020 issue of Best Execution. www.bestexecution.net.

For the financial organisations swimming through a sea of regulation, the news that the European authorities were delaying the impending stricter clearing and settlement regime was a huge relief.

AI driven solutions are becoming a competitive differentiator for banks and other financial services — delivering a hyper-personalised customer experience, improving decision-making and boosting operational efficiency. Yet, many financial services institutions (FIs) remain in an experimental phase and will need to accelerate actual AI deployment. Otherwise, they risk being left behind by digitally native players.

The ongoing technological revolution continues to change the world in unforeseeable ways, which can make difficult the accurate forecasting of jobs we cannot yet imagine. Nevertheless, to help organisations and individuals prepare for changes we are expecting to see in the coming years, we embarked on the enormous endeavour of applying our knowledge across several industries to predict the new jobs that are likely to emerge over the next decade.

The pharma manufacturing landscape is evolving as never before. Much of this change is driven by greater connectivity and Industry 4.0. The subsequent availability of data is driving operational efficiencies and providing unique insights.

After the coronavirus pandemic, the world will be quite different. Whether the current lockdown lasts weeks or months, very little will remain unchanged by COVID-19. A special report from Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work, After the Virus: A Special Report Looking Back on the Next Five Years, explores the most probable shifts across healthcare, education, retail, travel, technology, and government as the world becomes more connected and virtual. The report was written from a future perspective – as if the events were being chronicled in 2025, tracing the changes that unfolded in the immediate years following this pandemic.