New Delhi: We are seeing nearly 100,000 tech jobs being cut in 2025 so far, across Microsoft, Intel, TCS and Meta, which works out to an average of about 500 jobs getting axed every day. Middle and senior-level IT roles are highest at risk, indicating a trend of leaner management setups. Most of these companies deny that the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has anything to do with these layoffs, but the increasing in automation and mismatch in the skills required indicate that AI is influencing the decisions to cut jobs in one way or another.
We spoke to Aravind Putrevu, Director of Developer Marketing at Coderabbit to better understand the future of jobs in India’s tech sector. Putrevu explains, “Will AI take my job? My short answer: it will take the part you refuse to upgrade. Generative AI is less Terminator, more power tool. It trims grunt and rewires workflows. Companies keep people who drive these tools. They let go of those who only pass tickets.” The old paradigm of getting educated for the first 20 years of your life, then working for the subsequent 40 no longer works, now there is a requirement to constantly upskill and get back to learning intermittently to stay updated with the latest technologies and tools.
A ruthless but fair environment
The trick is to stay ahead of the curve and embrace the AI tools, and to incorporate them to the greatest extent. Putrevu explains, “In India, where teams scale fast and budgets stay tight, the shift will be ruthless and fair. Lift off looks like this. Pick one workflow you own. Add AI. Measure speed, quality, cost. Keep the gains, delete the noise. Learn retrieval, evals, guardrails, prompt hygiene. Ship tiny assistants that help your team daily. Do that for six months and you become non optional. Avoid it and you feel optional. The future of jobs is not AI versus humans. It is humans with AI versus humans without it.” The writing is on the wall, AI is here to stay, and it is time to adapt to it.