NEW DELHI: India’s tech and customer-experience sectors can generate up to 4 million new jobs over the next five years even as automation displaces certain routine roles, said NITI Aayog in a recent report.
The latest paper “Roadmap for Job Creation in the AI Economy”, unveiled by NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam, highlights how artificial intelligence is reshaping the landscape of work, workers, and workforce. The report highlights that AI for the tech services sector encompasses both risks and opportunities.
India is at cross-roads, and AI’s impact on the job market needs immediate attention and a ‘bold and strategic action plan’ can unlock its full potential, it said.
“India’s strength lies in its people. With over 9 million technology and customer experience professionals, and the world’s largest pool of young digital talent, we have both the scale and ambition. What we need now is urgency, vision, and coordination,” said Subrahmanyam.
To turn disruption into opportunity, the think tank has proposed a National AI Talent Mission, which aims to transform India into a global hub for AI skills and capabilities. The think tank suggests a three-pillar structure for AI enhancement — embedding AI literacy in education, creating a national reskilling engine, and positioning India as a magnet for AI talent through partnerships and infrastructure support.
The Indian AI talent demand is expected to grow from 800,000-850,000 to over 1,250,000 over 2024-26, a CAGR of 25%, while existing talent is only growing at 15%.
The roadmap examines how Artificial Intelligence is reshaping the tech services industry through the lens of work, worker, and workforce. It calls out that while India’s tech services sector faces the threat of significant job displacements by 2031, it also has the opportunity to create up to 4 million new jobs in the next five years. To turn disruption into opportunity, NITI Aayog recommends the launch of a National AI Talent Mission, a bold, nationally coordinated effort to transform India into the AI workforce capital of the world.
The report highlights that AI disruption is already reshaping jobs in India’s $245B technology and CX sectors. Without swift action, routine roles such as QA engineers and L1 support agents risk rapid redundancy. But with the right skilling, reskilling, and innovation pathways, India could emerge as a global hub for AI-first roles—from Ethical AI Specialists and AI Trainers to Sentiment Analysts and AI DevOps Engineers.
“India’s strength lies in its people. With over 9 million technology and customer experience professionals, and the world’s largest pool of young digital talent, we have both the scale and ambition. What we need now is urgency, vision, and coordination,” said B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, CEO, NITI Aayog.
“The difference between job loss and job creation depends squarely on the choices we make today. This roadmap provides a clear, actionable path to ensure India becomes the global epicentre of AI talent by 2035,” said Debjani Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow, NITI Aayog.
The roadmap envisions a mission-mode approach anchored on three key pillars: embedding AI across the education system to make AI literacy a foundational skill in schools, universities, and vocational programs; building a national reskilling engine to upskill and reskill millions of technology and CX professionals for higher-value, AI-augmented roles; and positioning India as a global AI talent magnet by retaining domestic talent, attracting international experts, and establishing the country as a premier AI skilling destination.
It also advocates close collaboration between the proposed India AI Talent Mission and the ongoing India AI Mission, along with partnerships between academia, government and industry to create an enabling ecosystem of compute infrastructure and data availability to forge the trained talent into innovators and researchers of tomorrow.
India’s future in the AI economy hinges on decisive action. With coordinated leadership across government, industry, and academia, the report stresses that India can not only safeguard its workforce but also lead in shaping global AI.
