Nearly half of India's workforce could benefit from AI as productivity tool: Report
New Delhi, July 29
Generative artificial intelligence is likely to transform the way Indians work rather than lead to widespread job losses, with nearly half of India's non-agricultural workforce expected to use AI as a productivity tool, a report has said.
According to an analysis of Goldman Sachs, Gen-AI could automate 9-17 per cent of tasks currently performed by India's non-agricultural workforce, depending on the pace of technological advancement.
However, only 8-12 per cent of jobs face a meaningful substitution risk, while 42-48 per cent of employment is likely to be complemented by AI, the report said.
Gen-AI could perform 9-17 per cent of the tasks currently undertaken by India's non-agricultural workforce, depending on assumptions about the level of task complexity that it can perform," said Santanu Sengupta, Goldman Sachs Research's chief economist.
The report said most occupations are likely to combine tasks that AI can perform with activities requiring human judgement, creativity and physical skills.
Knowledge-intensive sectors such as healthcare, education, media, and financial and professional services are expected to benefit the most from AI adoption due to their reliance on information analysis, content creation and decision-making.
In contrast, sectors such as manufacturing, construction and mining are expected to face lower direct disruption as their work involves greater physical activity.
The report identified clerical support roles as having the highest substitution risk, followed by some professional, technician and customer-service jobs.
However, occupations involving physical work and machine operations could see limited impact from AI.
The report has expected that AI adoption to increase India's annual labour productivity growth by around 0.4 percentage points over the next decade.
The gains could rise to 0.8 percentage points if AI capabilities advance faster than anticipated.
The report also noted that concerns over AI hurting India's technology services sector may be overstated.
While the country's six largest listed IT services companies have reduced headcount by around 64,000, the wider technology ecosystem, including Global Capability Centres (GCCs), added nearly 700,000 jobs over the past three years.
— IANS
Reader Comments
This is a double-edged sword. On one hand, India's IT services sector needs to upskill fast. On the other, 0.4% productivity growth over 10 years seems too little for all the hype. I'm in education and we already see students using AI to cheat on assignments. The real challenge is teaching them to use it ethically. 🤔
Good that they mentioned clerical roles at highest risk. My cousin works as a data entry operator and I'm worried for him. But the silver lining is India hasalways adapted—from typewriters to computers, and now to AI. We just need proper government training programs, not just IT firms doing their own thing.
"42-48% complemented by AI" sounds promising, but ground reality is different. In my manufacturing unit, we tried AI for inventory management and it messed up because our supply chain is too chaotic. Indian businesses need basic digital literacy first before jumping into AI. 😅
The key point is "human judgement, creativity and physical skills" remain important. As a healthcare professional, I see AI helping with diagnostics but never replacing the empathy of a doctor. India's demographic dividend means we have millions of young people—let's train them for this AI-augmented world, not fear it.
Wait, 64,000 jobs cut in IT services but 700,000 added in GCCs? That's interesting. So the shift is happening—from outsourcing to in-house captives. But regular IT employees need to keep learning or they'll be caught in the middle.
We welcome thoughtful discussions from our readers. Please keep comments respectful and on-topic.