Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani on 13 October described fears of artificial intelligence (AI) causing mass job losses in India’s IT services sector as “hogwash” and said the technology would, in fact, generate more demand for firms like his.
Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi, Nilekani said the panic around AI eliminating white-collar roles ignores how enterprise transformation actually works. He acknowledged that coding is being automated, but argued that coding is only a small part of what a technology services project involves.
“The requirement for companies like Infosys or others is actually more than ever before because the transformation of enterprise is a very complex activity, and AI requires you to fundamentally reimagine the way you do business”, he said. He added that the sector will see more work rather than less: “We are going to see only more work coming our way”.
Nilekani turned sharpest when discussing the source of the anxiety. He said the idea that AI is fuelling job losses “is all disaster marketing to suit the interests of large capital”. On a separate panel the same day, he reiterated the point, calling the AI job-loss argument “absolute hogwash”.
He pointed to the gap between what AI can do in a demo and what it takes to deploy it inside a running enterprise. According to his comment, “business transformation is not just about coding. Seventy% is governance, change management, transformation, guardrails.”
Nilekani added that firms will need people to ensure AI models do not hallucinate, to validate outputs, to integrate AI with legacy systems and to translate client needs into usable workflows. Nilekani separately added that the broader growth story will come from small businesses. The Infosys Foundation’s Springboard Livelihood Program, he noted, has already enabled over 2.5 lakh job offers and is targeting 5 lakh by 2030.
Markets responded in kind. Infosys shares rose by roughly 3% during the 13 October trading session, with investors reading the commentary as a sign that the IT major sees AI as a demand expander rather than a workforce threat. The Infosys board of directors is scheduled to meet on 22 and 23 October 2026.
The comments arrive against a wider backdrop of workforce churn in Indian IT. In Q2 FY27, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) cut nearly 19,755 roles, and HCL Technologies trimmed 3,292 employees in Q1 FY27, as both firms recalibrated towards specialised AI, cloud and digital skills. Nilekani’s framing pushes back on the dominant narrative that these cuts are AI-driven displacement, placing the explanation instead on business transformation complexity and shifting skill demand.
