By Vivek Kumar M and Nandan Mandayam

Feb 13 (Reuters) - Indian IT shares logged their worst week in more than 10 months on Friday, ‌extending a rout driven by fears of disruption from artificial intelligence tools ‌that wiped about $50 billion off the sector's market capitalisation so far in February.

The launch of a ​tool by tech startup Anthropic last month triggered a global tech sell-off and intensified concerns that rapid adoption of generative AI could upend India's $283 billion IT services industry.

For the week, the Nifty IT slid 8.2%, its steepest drop since April 2025.

Analysts at ‌J.P. Morgan flagged investor concerns ⁠that India's IT firms could miss growth targets as AI pushes clients to reallocate spending.

Sat Duhra, portfolio manager at Henderson Far ⁠East Income, said IT companies probably haven't done the greatest job in terms of communicating how they can turn AI into an opportunity rather than a threat.

The index fell ​as ​much as 5.2% on Friday before paring ​losses to settle 1.44% lower.

The losses ‌on Friday were led by a 2.1% drop in industry leader Tata Consultancy Services. Infosys declined 1.2% and HCLTech dropped 1.4%.

Friday's mid-session recovery was largely due to investors "buying the dip" on attractive valuations, Centrum Broking's Piyush Pandey said.

"Investors have largely over-reacted to the threat posed by these AI tools. It is important to note ‌that IT companies remain relevant even in ​the age of AI, albeit with a leaner ​headcount."

JP Morgan noted that it's "overly simplistic" ​to assume that AI can automatically generate enterprise grade software ‌and replace the value IT Services firms ​create across the ​cycle.

"IT Services companies remain the plumbers in the tech world, and if enterprise software/SaaS is rewritten on a bespoke basis by agents - it will need ​significant services plumbing to ‌work in enterprise context and minimise AI slop."

(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam, Vivek ​Kumar M and Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru, writing by Chandini Monnappa; ​Editing by Sonia Cheema and Janane Venkatraman)