As companies increasingly rely on artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance efficiency, streamline operations, and drive growth, more entry-level jobs, particularly in the IT services sector, will be eliminated, according to Ganesh Natarajan, Chairperson of GTT Data Solutions. An IT industry stalwart and the former CEO of Zensar Technologies and Aptech, Natarajan believes that entry-level positions, particularly in programming, coding, and migration within the IT industry, would be most impacted as AI automates these tasks.

"Today, if you look at the IT services industry itself, while the industry is growing at 10 per cent, manpower is not being added at the same levels. On the contrary, I would think that there is a net reduction in manpower across all large (IT service) organisations. So that's a trend that's likely to continue," he suggested.

According to Natarajan, in the current scenario, only 30-40 per cent of people who lose their jobs can be retrained in some form of AI and reintroduced into the formal workforce. However, there will be a net decline of around 60 per cent of jobs in traditional areas, for which we should be mentally prepared. This highlights the pressing need for retraining to remain competitive in the rapidly evolving job market.

He further predicted that service organisations might lay off 25-30 per cent of their workforce due to role obsolescence, hire 8-10 per cent of new, specialised AI talent, and retrain the remaining 60-70 per cent of their workforce. The workforce that has to be laid off is simply because there are no roles available for them, and not because they are bad at what they do, cautioned Natarajan.

The World Economic Forum's "The Future of Jobs Report 2025" predicts that nearly 170 million new jobs will be created over the next decade. However, with the rise of AI-powered tools, there is a serious threat that the technology might automate as many roles as it creates, primarily for white-collar, entry-level jobs. The same report suggests that nearly 40 per cent of employers expect to reduce their workforce where AI can automate tasks.

Discussing whether India should worry about the supply of an AI-ready workforce in the coming years when every company will be looking for specialised talent, Natarajan said that this is not going to be a problem. He highlighted that approximately 5 lakh young people within IT companies have already been trained on AI tools and deployment. However, he admitted that India lags behind global leaders like China and the US in AI product development, estimating a 2-3 year gap.

"See, there won't be a talent crisis, but there will be a crisis of not enough jobs for the available talent. So the problem is not the people. The problem is whether they can be deployed."

Despite the implementation gap, Natarajan lauded India's AI tech talent, rating it "nine out of ten" and positioning it as "definitely among the best," even superior to much of the talent in Western Europe and the US.

The pace of AI adoption in India has accelerated significantly over the past year, driven by the growing recognition of AI and machine learning's predictive capabilities. Industries such as BFSI, healthcare, retail, and manufacturing are increasingly deploying predictive use cases for fraud analytics and automation, resulting in greater operational efficiencies.