Bengaluru/Mumbai, Jan. 1 -- Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. is exploring gig-like hiring arrangements for hard-to-retain specialists in certain roles, signalling a shift as India's $283 billion offshoring sector grapples with a talent crunch amid uncertainty caused by artificial intelligence.

India's largest information technology (IT) services company will consider allowing data architects and data scientists to log in for a few hours with the option to work elsewhere, according to a senior executive at the company, who didn't want to be identified as the information is not yet public.

"For instance, data architects do not need to work for 8 hours; their work often gets done in four hours, and then why should they not be allowed to work...