At a time when?AI is eating away thousands of jobs around the world, IT sector veteran and former HCL CEO Vineet Nayar has issued a further warning. Nayar has said that AI is undoubtedly going to impact people working in the Indian IT industry in a big way.
How big will the impact be? Former HCL CEO Nayar mentions that the number is 70 per cent fewer people (i.e. about 70 percent layoffs). In a conversation with India Today, Nayar spoke about the impact of AI on tech companies in India, saying: "Because of automation, IT companies will need 70 per cent less people than they used to for the same task.¡±
"The skills of employees for coding, testing, maintenance, responding to trouble tickets, all that will be taken over by AI as these skills will become obsolete," HCL CEO Nayar predicts.
A few weeks ago, NVIDIA CEO too had mentioned AI will replace coding.
AI tools will put pressure on and present challenges for Indian IT companies as they operate with efficiency that is almost human-level. They might also feel pressured to lay off employees and cut staff. But Nayar thinks they shouldn't succumb to the temptation. According to him, firing people will not be "ethical" for Indian IT companies. He suggests that it might also be hazardous for the future of the Indian IT sector.
The decision to train recent graduates in AI skills instead of current employees with five, ten, or fifteen years of experience, who may come at a higher cost, according to Nayar, would be unethical and could have a negative effect on India's IT sector in the future. This may seem like an easy, low-cost solution.?
¡°Letting go of existing staff and hiring fresh graduates at low cost, would be unethical and disastrous for India,¡± he says, adding that IT companies in India should focus on up-skilling and carrying their existing employees with them. ¡°If companies re-engineer and re-calibrate employees to higher order skills, then I believe IT companies will have the resources to re-skill existing people, as per the report.
Nayar also mentioned that the employers have an ethical obligation to take their workers with them, primarily because it makes sense if they are not profitable. However, AI will only benefit businesses by expanding their market share, earnings, and profits, so there's no reason why these businesses shouldn't take their staff with them. That's the morally right move.
Also Read:?Accenture Announces Plan To Invest $3 Billion In?AI, Also Double Hiring
But not all of AI's effects on the IT sector may be bad. Nayar is actually quite optimistic about the advantages of AI. According to him, AI will present "fantastic opportunities for Indian ITs" to improve their customer relevance.?
¡°With AI, Indian ITs will get very close to the customer¡¯s customer, therefore our relevance will increase, we will be in the board rooms, we will be far more strategically important for our customers,¡± he says.
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