An IT services firm that makes itself its first AI transformation customer is Mastech Digital. The result of this decision has been an internal move to an Autonomous Enterprise, with the company weaving AI, automation and agentic workflows into the fabric of its daily business.
Instead of confining AI to the work it does for clients, Mastech is putting it to use in its own functions to see what is effective, spot any operational hurdles and accumulate experience to offer customers. The company says it has reaped 67% productivity gains in its AI-first operations, even if it has not put forward the baseline or methodology behind the number. It is part of a wider strategy to prove out AI in actual business settings before rolling it out as a client service.
How Mastech Digital Is Deploying AI Agents Across Business Functions
Finance, HR, IT, security and operations are all seeing the deployment of AI agents at Mastech. The goal is to speed up cycle times, cut down on manual intervention and make things better for employees. In Q2 2026 the company went through an assessment of its enabling functions and their maturity in line with its plans to be a fully autonomous, AI-led enterprise.
For others looking to make similar changes, there is a lesson here: adopting AI is not merely a matter of new tools. One has to consider how processes are done, where automation is of value and the way staff will engage with the systems.
“We believe credibility starts with practicing what we preach,” said Kannan Sugantharaman, Chief Finance and Operations Officer at Mastech. “We are a company that helps our clients with data and AI transformation.”
That kind of in-house experience is now being put to work in client engagements, steering organisations away from stand-alone AI apps and to outcome-driven services underpinned by data, governance and human oversight.
How AI Transformation Is Reshaping Mastech’s Hiring Strategy
The change is having an effect on who Mastech hires. “We are after people with unlimited curiosity and the disposition to experiment and innovate so our customers can succeed with AI,” according to Sandhya Ramesh, Chief People Officer.
Debasis Satpathy, the Chief Revenue Officer, put it more succinctly: “The next decade will reward value created and measured.”
Both point to the need for talent to put AI to work on real business problems.
Inside Mastech’s Knowledge-First Enterprise Strategy
The Autonomous Enterprise effort is in keeping with Mastech’s Knowledge-First Enterprise vision. That means aligning data, context and human judgement so that the workforce and the AI are on the same page. Three pillars form the basis of its offerings:
- Applied AI – using engineering and agentic technology to get solutions to production.
- Modern Data – the foundation for AI.
- AI Governance, Trust and Safety – for secure and responsible deployment.
Take the agentic AI audit platform on AWS for instance. It is an application of this method, marrying human-in-the-loop controls and a reusable data base with AI for data extraction and reconciliation.
Why Mastech Is Using Its Own Business as an AI Test Bed
In making its own operations a test bed, Mastech is creating a feedback loop between what it does internally and the services it provides. The 67% gain in productivity is what the company puts down to its approach, but without a disclosed methodology it is a figure to be taken as reported by the firm.
Enterprises would do well to note that good AI adoption is not just automation; it calls for solid data, oversight and results one can measure.
At the end of the day Mastech’s strategy poses a practical question for enterprise AI: before you set about turning your customers into AI-led businesses, can you show the transformation in your own house?
