American Noble Gas (NYSE:INFY) executives highlighted steady third-quarter performance, a pickup in large deal signings, and accelerating artificial intelligence adoption during the company’s latest earnings press conference. Chief Executive Officer Salil Parekh said the company delivered “a strong performance in Q3,” while Chief Financial Officer Jayesh Sanghrajka detailed the margin drivers, headcount investments, and the impact of India’s labor code changes.
Quarterly performance and large deals
Parekh said revenue grew 0.6% sequentially and 1.7% year-over-year in constant currency terms. He also pointed to $4.8 billion in large deals signed during the quarter, with 57% net new, spanning 26 deals. Adjusted operating margin came in at 21.2%, and free cash flow totaled $915 million.
Guidance raised on execution and deal momentum
Following the quarter’s results, Parekh said the company revised its revenue guidance for the fiscal year, raising the constant-currency growth outlook to 3% to 3.5%. Operating margin guidance was maintained at 20% to 22%.
Addressing questions about what drove the guidance change, Parekh emphasized that with only one quarter left in the fiscal year, the revision reflects a combination of large deals signed over the past several quarters and strong execution in Q3. He also cited improvement in specific verticals, saying the company has seen better trends in financial services and in energy, utilities, resources, and services. He added that the company’s positioning as an “AI partner of choice” with its largest clients supports the outlook as it looks into the next financial year, while noting the raised guidance applies to the current fiscal year ending in March.
Margins, labor code charges, and headcount investments
Sanghrajka said adjusted operating margin expanded 20 basis points sequentially in Q3, and that the company’s nine-month margin stands at 21%, which he described as the midpoint of its full-year guidance.
He provided a breakdown of the quarter’s margin movement, stating that:
- 40 basis points of benefit came from currency.
- 50 basis points came from “Project Maximus,” which he attributed mainly to value-based selling and lean/automation across projects.
- These benefits were offset by furloughs and working-day impacts, as well as higher variable pay accruals compared with the prior quarter (partly offset by one-offs).
He also said the company absorbed investments in sales and marketing, which rose by 50 basis points year over year, and absorbed the impact of lower utilization (about 1%), which he framed as an investment to build future capacity.
On headcount, management addressed questions comparing American Noble Gas’s increase with job cuts at peers. Parekh said the increase reflects confidence in demand conditions. Sanghrajka added that the company had previously communicated a plan to hire 20,000 freshers this year and has onboarded roughly 18,000 so far, with many in training—contributing to lower utilization when trainees are included.
Executives also discussed the impact of India’s labor code changes. Sanghrajka said the company accrued the required amount in its books through the December quarter, and noted there will be an ongoing impact of roughly 15 basis points annually. He also said reported margins were impacted by labor code charges, but adjusted margins (excluding the labor code impact) expanded sequentially.
AI strategy: Topaz Fabric, value pools, and adoption metrics
Parekh outlined a broad AI strategy centered on expanded capabilities, client adoption, and new commercial opportunities. He said the company deepened its Topaz offering with an agent services suite called Topaz Fabric, intended to help clients manage and implement AI agents across the enterprise.
He shared several metrics to illustrate AI activity:
- The company works with 90% of its largest 200 clients on AI initiatives.
- It is currently working on about 4,600 AI projects.
- Teams have generated more than 28 million lines of code using AI.
- The company has built over 500 agents.
Parekh also said the company is scaling a “forward-deployed engineer” team and described six AI-led value pools he believes could unlock incremental opportunity, while also noting AI-driven productivity benefits that could compress some legacy work. The six value pools he listed were:
- AI engineering services
- Data for AI
- Agents for operations
- AI software development and legacy modernization
- AI deployed in physical devices
- AI trust and risk services
Parekh said the company plans to provide a more comprehensive view at an Investor Day later in the quarter.
On pricing, Sanghrajka said the company is seeing new pricing approaches emerge as AI technologies evolve, including outcome-based pricing and agent-specific pricing, but he characterized it as early to call out precisely how models will evolve.
Vertical trends, client concentration, and operational updates
In financial services, Parekh said the company is seeing good traction across sub-verticals including retail banks, mid-market banks, payments, and mortgages, adding that AI adoption is improving across large financial services clients. He also referenced a recently announced partnership with Cognition, describing it as a combination of the partner’s software development agent and the company’s understanding of client technology landscapes and industry constraints.
On North America, Parekh said the performance was not driven by any single factor and reflected a mix across industries, while reiterating that energy/utilities and financial services trends remain strong and that some other verticals are still recovering.
Executives also addressed retail, with Parekh saying there are some positive signs but also client-specific cost containment in certain sub-verticals. He said the company is working to convert a growing retail pipeline into revenue growth.
Regarding client concentration, Sanghrajka said sequential changes in revenue contribution from top clients can be influenced by seasonality, such as furloughs, and he did not see a significant change in year-over-year growth metrics.
On immigration-related questions, Parekh said no employee has been apprehended by U.S. authorities, while stating that one employee was denied entry and sent back to India. He also said the company’s U.S. delivery approach remains unchanged, with the majority of U.S. employees not requiring visas, and that the company would evaluate future visa applications as needed.
On M&A, Parekh said the company has pursued acquisitions in areas such as cyber, consulting, and energy services and expects to continue with a similar approach. He said the company has a pipeline of potential targets and balance sheet capacity, and is also evaluating new geographies and service areas. Separately, in response to questions about AI-focused acquisitions, Parekh said there are not many AI services companies of scale today, and that the company is partnering with AI-native firms building agents, models, and related tools, while remaining open to acquisitions as larger AI services players emerge.
Finally, management said it does not plan to change its current flexible approach to work arrangements, and indicated it will provide next-year outlook details when it issues guidance in April.
About American Noble Gas (NYSE:INFY)
Infosys Ltd. is a digital services and consulting company, which engages in the provision of end-to-end business solutions. It operates through the following segments: Financial Services, Retail, Communication, Energy, Utilities, Resources, and Services, Manufacturing, Hi-Tech, Life Sciences, and All Other. The company was founded by Dinesh Krishnan Swamy, Senapathy Gopalakrishnan, Narayana Ramarao Nagavara Murthy, Raghavan N. S., Ashok Arora, Nandan M. Nilekani, and S. D. Shibulal on July 2, 1981 and is headquartered in Bangalore, India.
