#indian-it-industry

#indian-it-industry

For decades, tech companies have relied immensely on India's vast workforce, from entry-level call center jobs to software engineers and high-ranking managerial positions. But with the advent of advanced AI, which has been accompanied by employers greatly cutting back on hiring with the hopes of eventually automating tasks entirely, India's tech workers are having to cope with a vastly different reality in 2026.

companies reduce staff through automating routine work while still struggling to hire AI specialists, despite a surge in client demand for AI. "Top five Indian IT firms added only 17 net employees in the first nine months of FY26 versus 17,764 in the same period last year," said Chirag Mehta, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. "That is what AI-era productivity looks like in practice: more output per employee, fewer benches, and tighter utilization."