'Only 29%': Indians believe AI won't take jobs and they could be horribly wrong
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "'Only 29%': Indians believe AI won't take jobs and they could be horribly wrong")
'Only 29%': Indians believe AI won't take jobs and they could be horribly wrong
A Pew Research Center survey of 37 countries found that just 29 per cent of Indians expect AI to reduce jobs over the next 20 years — one of the lowest levels of worry anywhere, against 76 per cent in Australia and South Korea and 71 per cent in the United States. For a country whose economy leans on exactly the work AI automates first, that calm is worth examining.
The rich world is bracing for artificial intelligence to cut jobs. India, by and large, is not — and that gap in expectation is the story.
In a Pew Research Center survey of 37 countries, published on 17 September and conducted between February and May, just 29 per cent of Indians said they expect AI to lead to fewer jobs in their country over the next 20 years. Only 21 per cent expected more jobs, but the striking figure is how few are worried about losses at all.
Where India Sits
Set against the rest of the world, India's calm is close to an outlier.
In Australia and South Korea, 76 per cent expect AI to reduce jobs. In the United States, 71 per cent. Across Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, the share sits between 51 and 61 per cent. India's 29 per cent is second only to Nigeria — the single country where more people expected AI to add jobs than cut them.
On the face of it, that reads as optimism. The harder question is whether it is the right call.
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Why The Optimism Is Not Obviously Safe
Here is the uncomfortable part, and it is why the calm deserves scrutiny.
The work AI automates most readily is routine, screen-based cognitive labour — drafting, coding, data processing, customer support, back-office administration. That is a description of a large part of India's IT services and business-process industry, the sector that has employed millions and carried the country's rise up the value chain.
In other words, the economy expressing the least worry is among the most exposed to the specific wave of automation now arriving. The countries bracing hardest — the US, Australia, South Korea — are wealthier, more AI-aware, and arguably reading their own exposure more clearly. That is the case for thinking India's 29 per cent could age badly.
But The Number Is Softer Than It Looks
Before treating Indian optimism as naivety, the survey's own detail complicates it — and this cuts the other way.
Alongside the 29 per cent who expect fewer jobs, 35 per cent of Indian respondents said they were unsure of AI's impact — among the highest 'don't know' shares of any country. Pew notes that awareness of AI remains relatively low in India. So the low worry is not a confident bet that jobs are safe. It is, in large part, a country that has not yet formed a view.
That matters two ways. It means the optimism is shallow and could swing sharply as awareness rises. And it means headlines calling Indians relaxed about AI are reading confidence into what is often uncertainty.
It also means the 29 per cent is question-dependent. A separate Ipsos survey in late 2025 found a majority of Indians expecting significant AI-driven job losses. When the framing changes, so does the answer — a sign the underlying opinion is not settled.
What Indians Are Worried About
The survey also shows Indians are not simply sanguine about AI across the board.
India leaned toward believing that AI will widen the gap between the rich and the poor. So the picture is not blanket optimism; it is a country less convinced AI will shrink the total number of jobs, while still worried about who the gains go to. That is a more coherent view than the jobs figure alone suggests, and a more anxious one.
The Case That India Might Be Right
Fairness requires putting the optimistic case at its strongest, because it is not empty.
Most Indians do not work in IT offices. A large share of the workforce is in agriculture and the informal economy — sectors less immediately exposed to this wave of automation than a call centre or a coding job. India is also young and its economy is growing fast, and a growing economy can create jobs even as AI destroys some, leaving the net positive. A worker in that economy who expects more jobs overall is not obviously wrong.
The pessimism of rich, slow-growing countries may say as much about their own stagnation as about AI. India is a different kind of economy, and importing Western fear wholesale would be its own mistake.
What To Watch
Whether Indian worry rises as AI awareness spreads, which would pull the 29 per cent up toward Western levels. Whether the IT services industry — the most exposed piece — shows job effects that filter into public opinion. And whether policy treats the current calm as reassurance or as a warning, because the least-prepared moment to face a shock is the one where few believe it is coming.
