Will AI take away jobs in the future?

This is one of the most common worries about AI, and the honest answer is that AI will change a great many jobs, replace some tasks, create new roles, and affect different people very differently. Neither the extreme fear nor the casual dismissal tells the full story.

It helps to think in tasks rather than jobs. Most jobs are a bundle of different tasks. AI is very good at certain tasks: drafting standard text, summarising documents, answering routine queries, basic coding, data entry, translation, simple design and first-level analysis. A job made almost entirely of such tasks faces real pressure. A job where these tasks are only one part will more likely change shape than disappear.

Roles under the most pressure include routine customer support, basic content writing, data entry and processing, simple translation work, some entry-level coding and back-office processing. India's large IT services and BPO workforce is likely to feel this shift, especially at junior levels where repetitive work has traditionally been the starting point.

Roles that are more resilient tend to involve physical work in unpredictable settings, such as electricians, plumbers, nurses and technicians; deep human relationships and trust, such as teachers, counsellors, doctors and sales; complex judgement and accountability, such as managers, lawyers and senior engineers; and creativity combined with real-world understanding.

New roles are also appearing: AI engineers, people who build and evaluate AI systems, AI trainers, data specialists, AI governance and safety roles, and countless jobs where professionals use AI to do far more than before. History shows that major technologies, from computers to the internet, eventually created many jobs that did not exist before, though the transition was painful for some groups.

The most realistic near-term change is this: people who use AI well will be more productive than people who do not. A marketer, accountant, teacher or developer who uses AI effectively may do the work of several people, which changes how many people companies need and what skills they look for.

How can you prepare?

1. Learn to use AI tools in your own field now, not later.
2. Build skills AI finds hard: judgement, communication, leadership and domain expertise.
3. Keep learning, because the pace of change is fast.
4. Focus on outcomes and problem-solving rather than routine execution.

AI is a powerful tool. The people most at risk are often not those replaced by AI, but those outpaced by others who learned to use it.