ECONOMY
Workforce in AI-exposed jobs rises to 25% from 20% in 2012: CEA
- IBJ Bureau
- Oct 12, 2026
A quarter of India’s workforce is now employed in occupations exposed to artificial intelligence (AI), up from about a fifth in 2012, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran said on Sunday.
The CEA made these observations while delivering a special address at the launch of a white paper — AI, Automation and India’s Workforce — by the Great Lakes Centre for Finance & Economic Research, Chennai.
The report is authored by Vidya Mahambare, Vivek Jadhav and Vishnu Venugopalan.
Citing from the report, Mr Nageswaran said that in urban India, the share of jobs exposed to AI is close to half.
“Exposure is not the same as job loss. In some jobs, of course, AI is likely to raise what a worker can do,” he said, adding that 4.6 crore Indians, including doctors, teachers, engineers and managers, are in occupations where AI complements their work for the first time.
According to the report, the share of workers in highly routine jobs rose from under 28 per cent in 2012 to over 32 per cent in 2025, impacting nearly 20 crore people.
Many of these jobs, including machine operation, garment and food processing, cleaning and construction labour, are also susceptible to conventional automation.
“Whatever happens happens with AI regardless of AI. Part of this rise reflects a welcome movement out of low-productivity farm work which is good,” Mr Nageswaran said.
However, he cautioned that the shift also meant that many workers had moved into occupations involving tasks that machines could most easily learn to perform.
“Our relative wages still protect these jobs, but they may not protect them forever,” he said, stressing the need to build the capacity to retrain workers before the disruption begins to show up in employment statistics.
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