As artificial intelligence and Large Language Models (LLMs) engulf sector after sector, the demand for people with AI skills has gone up significantly – far more than what we are assuming.

According to a first-of-its-kind survey by ServiceNow, the country would need to upskill or reskill 1.62 crore workers in AI and automation to meet India’s skill deficit. The country also requires 4.7 million new jobs in the technology space alone as it needs to upskill the existing IT workforce of 4.6 million professionals by 2027.

The fact that AI and automation has the potential to add up to $500 billion to India’s GDP by 2025 reflects the need for the massive transformation of the workforce.

The study predicts that manufacturing will witness the biggest disruption, with 23 per cent of the workforce primed for automation and skill augmentation, followed by agriculture, forestry and fishing (22%), wholesale and retail trade (11.6%), transportation and storage (8%), and construction (7.8%).

The study, conducted by Pearson for the New York Stock Exchange-listed ServiceNow, used machine learning (ML) tools to predict how technology will transform the tasks that make up each job. 

The country’s digital skill ecosystem is also poised to grow in tandem. The country would require 75,000 application developers and 70,000 data analysts, and 55,000 implementation engineers by 2027.

“The pace of progress has never been swifter, with businesses driving large-scale transformation across diverse industry sectors that will play a decisive role in India’s rise towards a $1 trillion digital economy,” Kamolika Gupta Peres, Vice President and Managing Director, ServiceNow Indian SubContinent, said.

“The research by ServiceNow analyses the current status quo of India’s workforce, impact of AI and automation across industries and roadmap to how stakeholders can equip the workforce with the relevant digital skills to bridge the demand-supply gap,” she said.

“India’s decision-makers and industry stalwarts understand the potential of AI. We’re working with every industry across the country to showcase best practice use of AI to drive meaningful business change and ensure these changes bring about meaningful, quality and secure careers for people while also enhancing productivity,” she said.

While AI and automation’s influence will reshape a substantial number of repetitive and technical jobs, many workers currently in non-technical roles possess abilities that can be applied to high-quality, more technical work profiles.

Even traditional technology roles such as computer programmers will be impacted by the rise of generative AI capabilities like text to code. They can attempt to reskill and evolve to become flow automation engineers, product wwners, implementation engineers, and master architects.

Tech hubs, which have the largest concentration of computer programmers, Karnataka (3.31 lakhs), Tamil Nadu (3.23 lakhs), Telangana (1.71 lakhs), can gain a significant competitive advantage.

Related Topics