Mahindra chief says AI will elevate, not erase, Indian jobs

Anand Mahindra’s message won’t change the technical trajectory of AI, but it does matter for how a major emerging market digests the transition. India’s economic story hinges on both high‑skill services and a vast base of blue‑collar work; if influential business leaders frame AI as an upgrade rather than a pink slip, that lowers political resistance to automation and opens space for more pragmatic adoption. His emphasis on AI handling drudge work while elevating practical skills is also a subtle pushback against the idea that only elite knowledge workers will benefit from the technology.

In the race to AGI, social license is as important as silicon. Large‑scale deployment requires workforces to tolerate, or even embrace, AI augmentation. A chair of a diversified conglomerate publicly telling millions of workers that their value can rise with AI helps normalize upskilling narratives over protectionist ones. It won’t resolve the very real displacement risks, but it signals that at least some industrial leaders in the Global South plan to lean into AI rather than lobby to slow it down.