The AI rollup mirage in play

Capgemini buys WNS for $3.3B.

Just two weeks ago, Nikola Mrkšiċ and I wrote an op-ed in Fortune arguing that the AI roll-up thesis was mostly a mirage. We wrote:

On paper, it’s brilliant arbitrage. In practice, it’s a mirage. It rests on a fundamental category error: confusing operational improvement with business model transformation. Yes, AI can make workflows more efficient. No, that doesn’t turn a services company into a software company.

Today, French consulting giant Capgemini announced its $3.3B all-cash acquisition of WNS, a publicly listed BPO firm with 65,000 employees and deep roots in sectors like insurance, travel, and BFSI. Reuters framed the deal as a move into "business-process transformation" powered by generative and agentic AI.

But if you take Capgemini at its word, that AI capability is already present in WNS. On their website, WNS promotes a mature generative AI offering spanning customer service, KPO, and analytics. This isn’t some dusty call center, it’s a services company with AI traction.

So why did it sell for BPO multiples?

Once a BPO, always a BPO

Let’s look at the numbers:

• WNS FY2025 revenue: $1.315B

• Operating margin: 18.7%

• EBITDA FY2025: $236M

• Implied multiple: ~2.5× revenue, ~14× EBITDA

That’s a far cry from EV/EBITA multiples fetched by AI-transformed software peers.

This is exactly the category error we described: confusing operational improvement with business model transformation. Yes, AI can make workflows more efficient. No, that doesn’t turn a services company into a software company.

Read our original op-ed below