How AI is changing jobs in India

Woman sitting on the ground and smiling with an open laptop in her hands

Technology is changing how we spend our time at work and opening new doors to build critical skills that will help fill business gaps across every sector. To get ahead today, everyone needs AI skills.

The 2024 Workforce Skills Forecast by ServiceNow shows India’s job market is expecting a net gain of 33.89 million new workers by 2028, continuing its upward trajectory. While all sectors are predicted to see positive net changes in headcount, retail will see the biggest boost, with 6.96 million new workers needed to support its expansion as one of India’s fastest-growing sectors.

India’s workforce growth, spurred by AI

Sectors expected to see the strongest job growth include:

This growth far outstrips the net negative 0.11 million jobs from the impact of capacity gain and automation on tech jobs. As the use of generative AI, chatbots, and AI-driven analytics gains traction in the workforce, the implementation and maintenance of these emerging technologies will drive demand for skilled workers across all sectors, creating an estimated 2.73 million tech jobs by 2028.

There will be no decline in tech jobs over the next few years, although the demand for certain roles will vary. Software application developer, for example, is set to be the most in-demand tech job in India, with an additional 109,700 needed by 2028.

India has one of the fastest-growing mobile app markets in the world, according to Business of Apps, boosting interest in app development skills across all sectors and contributing to a predicted annual growth rate of 11.36% between 2024 and 2029, Statista forecasts.

Other roles in high demand include systems software developer (48,800) and data engineer (48,500)—both critical roles to support the growing use of AI tools in the workforce.

The implementation of emerging technologies will drive demand for skilled workers across all sectors, creating an estimated 2.73 million tech jobs by 2028. -ServiceNow and Pearson, 2024 Workforce Skills Forecast

What does this mean for India’s workforce?

As AI grows and matures and is relied on to handle more routine tasks, workers will need to develop skills to use AI effectively.

LinkedIn differentiates “AI talent” from “AI literacy.” The first refers to people with at least two AI-related skills, who typically work in technical engineering jobs. The second is possession of a set of skills needed to use AI technology and applications effectively.

For the majority of India’s workforce, reskilling for AI doesn’t mean learning how to code. It means becoming AI literate to the point that one is able to use these emerging technologies to maximize the benefits on their day-to-day job.

Employees who are AI literate will have a first-mover’s advantage. We’ve seen this before with the rise of internet literacy in the late 1990s. The birth of search engines such as Yahoo and Google made it possible for people to search for services online, irrevocably altering the marketing landscape.

Companies had to pivot quickly. Even tradespeople such as plumbers and electricians, who normally found clients through word of mouth, had to rethink the way they advertised. Organizations that embraced the internet—by creating web pages to house company information and using search engine optimization to place their pages among the top search results—attracted more business than those that didn’t.

Alongside AI literacy in areas such as software application development and data engineering, soft skills such as creative thinking and problem-solving will become more important for both tech and nontech roles.

For example, design thinking, or the “systematic approach to problem-solving that centers on the user or customer,” is the most distinctive skill in AI talent, according to the LinkedIn article. New AI tools need to be intuitive and frictionless to ease adoption.

As AI grows and matures and is relied on to handle more routine tasks, workers will need to develop skills to use AI effectively.

How to accelerate learning with AI

To build the skills needed in today’s workforce, individuals and enterprises can use AI tools to reskill and upskill. According to the Enterprise AI Maturity Index by ServiceNow and Oxford Economics, one in seven Indian enterprises has training and support programs in place to reskill employees.

Yet AI remains underused as a training tool by most organizations. Only 19% say they see significant AI usage in HR.

There’s a big opportunity to use AI not just for customer service or workflow optimization, but also to also help encourage a culture of learning and innovation. Here’s why:

  1. AI can help people upskill at their own pace with personalized learning programs. Creating tailored modules that consider each employee’s career goals and motivations takes time. This is where the deep personalization capabilities of AI come in, working off employee history to quickly build bespoke learning pathways that match individual goals and learning styles.

  2. AI can speed up learning with summarization and search capabilities. One of the biggest challenges with upskilling is the time commitment needed to cover a lot in a limited period. Imagine you can have your own virtual assistant pointing out which article to read first or giving you a bullet point summary of an ebook so you know exactly what to expect before cracking it open. With AI, each employee has learning support always at hand, delivering the right information precisely when they need it.

    Additionally, searching for information doesn’t need to take place through typical search engine inputs. A tool such as Now Assist for AI Search allows users to ask chatbots for answers, creating a quicker, more intelligent, and conversational experience that avoids issues such as getting stuck not knowing the right string of keywords to input.

  3. AI empowers employees to build their own apps without coding experience. With software application development in high demand between now and 2028, companies will be looking to either hire new talent or cultivate existing talent to fill the gap. Low-code, no-code tools allow any employee, regardless of coding knowledge, to learn how to build, deploy, and optimize their own apps.

Certain skills will matter more than others

AI is set to be a catalyst for job creation in India, driving change and creating better opportunities for skilled professionals. The question is: How can companies and employees harness it effectively and build the skills needed to excel?

Find out how ServiceNow can help your organization put AI to work for people.