I, Robotic: How AI is reshaping the way forward for work – Debjani Ghosh, Former President of NASSCOM and Distinguished Fellow at NITI Aayog, Lakshmi Narayanan, Former CEO, Cognizant and Chancellor, Krea College, B Santhanam, Former CEO – Asia Pacific and India Area & Chairman, Saint-Gobain India – In dialog with Raghuvir Srinivasan, Editor, The Hindu businessline, on the sixth version of The Hindu Huddle 2026, in Bengaluru on June 06, 2026.
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MURALI KUMAR Ok
The talk round synthetic intelligence has largely been framed round a single query: Will it take away jobs?
But at The Hindu Huddle’s session on “I, Robotic: How AI is reshaping the way forward for work”, business veterans argued that India dangers lacking a much more vital dialog — how one can redesign schooling, skilling, analysis and companies for an AI-led future.
The Hindu Huddle 2026: I, Robotic: How AI is reshaping the way forward for work
Video Credit score: Businessline
The panel, moderated by businessline editor Raghuvir Srinivasan, introduced collectively former Cognizant CEO Lakshmi Narayanan, former NASSCOM president and NITI Aayog distinguished fellow Debjani Ghosh, and former Saint-Gobain India Chairman B Santhanam.
For Ghosh, the present narrative round AI-driven job losses is usually misplaced.
“Quite a lot of the displacements until now have been resulting from overhiring through the pandemic. So it was correction that was taking place,” she mentioned, pushing again towards the view that AI is already eliminating massive numbers of jobs.
That doesn’t imply the dangers are insignificant. As AI methods develop into able to performing routine and repetitive duties, entry-level jobs are more likely to come below the best strain.
“The entry-level will positively get disrupted. And that is vital as a result of that’s tens of millions of individuals in India and tens of millions of kids in India,” Ghosh mentioned.
The challenge, she argued, is not to withstand AI but to revamp work round it. Moderately than viewing jobs as fastened roles, employers and policymakers want to interrupt them down into duties and determine which elements will be automated and which proceed to require human judgement.
That future, she mentioned, will be outlined by what she known as the “human sandwich mannequin”.
“You want the people to border the questions and inputs, AI does the work, and you then want people once more on the finish to confirm the result,” she mentioned, including that the mannequin will develop into much more vital as autonomous AI brokers develop into commonplace.
The dialog quickly moved past jobs to India’s place within the world AI financial system.
Whereas India has emerged as one of many world’s largest digital markets, Ghosh warned that being a client of know-how is not the identical as creating worth from it.
“Should you have a look at the 17.6 trillion prediction of how a lot worth AI will create within the subsequent 5 years, 80% of that is going to 2 international locations, US and China. For India, we must always no less than aspire to get 10% of that,” she mentioned.
Santhanam, nonetheless, believes India’s largest alternative could not lie in competing head-on with Silicon Valley’s frontier fashions.
As an alternative, he argued that the nation can create disproportionate influence via the diffusion of AI throughout sectors similar to agriculture, schooling and healthcare.
“An important work is in diffusion at these three areas — agriculture, schooling and well being. That’s the place I feel AI can do what people can’t do,” he mentioned.
He pointed to examples the place AI-powered options developed for Indian agricultural ecosystems have been tailored to be used elsewhere inside months, highlighting the nation’s skill to deploy know-how at scale.
But Santhanam reserved his sharpest criticism for company India.
“Within the Nifty 45, there are 230 impartial administrators. Lower than 10% of them have any understanding or information of know-how. That’s the state of our boards,” he mentioned.
The dearth of engagement with AI on the board degree, he argued, is notably regarding at a time when the know-how is quickly remodeling industries. “Not one firm within the managing director’s report had AI talked about. Not one. That’s surprising.”
Narayanan echoed considerations about India’s preparedness, notably in schooling and analysis.
Requested whether or not Indian faculties are producing graduates prepared for the AI period, his reply was blunt.
“The brief reply is no.”
India has traditionally excelled at adopting and scaling applied sciences, he mentioned, but has underinvested within the invention and analysis that drive technological management.
“We aren’t investing sufficient in analysis. The blame goes to the non-public sector,” he mentioned.
The previous Cognizant chief argued that whereas India is snug with diffusion, it wants far stronger capabilities in innovation and analysis if it hopes to play a significant function in shaping the subsequent wave of AI.
Taken collectively, the panellists painted an image that was neither utopian nor alarmist. AI will disrupt jobs, notably on the backside of the pyramid. It will create new alternatives as nicely. But whether or not India emerges as a creator of worth or merely a client of it will rely upon how shortly it could overhaul its classrooms, boardrooms and workforce for a know-how that is transferring quicker than any earlier than it.
Printed on June 6, 2026
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