India Less Vulnerable To AI Job Disruption, Says IT Secretary

New Delhi, Dec 26 (KNN) India is relatively shielded from AI-driven disruption to cognitive jobs compared to Western economies, due to its lower proportion of white-collar roles and the predominance of Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) based employment, according to IT Secretary S Krishnan. 

Lower Risk to Cognitive Jobs

Krishnan noted that AI represents the first technological revolution to directly affect knowledge workers, unlike previous industrial revolutions that replaced manual labour. However, he said India’s workforce composition mitigates the risk.

“For India, where the number of white-collar jobs relative to other jobs is much lower than in the West, this risk to cognitive jobs is not as serious. Most of our white-collar jobs are in STEM fields, which means we have an opportunity,” he told PTI.

He also emphasised that AI will enhance human capabilities rather than replace workers entirely, allowing people to be more productive in cognitive tasks.
Krishnan stressed that AI hallucinations and verification needs will sustain demand for humans to oversee outputs.

Real AI Job Growth in Application Development

While building AI models requires capital-intensive compute and small specialist teams, the real employment opportunities will come from creating and deploying sector-specific, use-case AI applications, which demand large numbers of trained professionals.

“The development and deployment of these applications will take a lot of trained human resources. That is what India has to offer to the world. That is where job opportunities in AI will arise,” Krishnan said.

India’s Global Role and Future Prospects

Krishnan concluded that India is well-positioned to leverage AI both domestically and globally, boosting jobs and economic growth. He added that an indigenised AI application model is in development and expected to be ready before the AI Summit in February 2026.

(KNN Bureau)