Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani on Thursday said India’s future job creation would come from millions of small businesses rather than large corporations, arguing that artificial intelligence (AI) would make highly structured companies more vulnerable to automation.
Speaking at an event organised by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), Nilekani said large companies would likely become “net job losers” as AI automates routine tasks, while employment would increasingly come from small firms where workers perform multiple roles.
“And in some sense, the future will be small businesses in terms of job creation, because large companies, which are very well structured, will actually be the most vulnerable to job losses. They are so well structured that every job is reduced to a few set tasks. It’s also easy to automate that and remove jobs. So large companies will probably be net job losers in the coming years,” Nilekani said.
He also called for simpler regulations, easier access to credit and markets, and AI tools to help small businesses grow.
Nilekani said initiatives such as the Account Aggregator framework could improve access to formal credit, while the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) could help small firms reach larger markets. Together with deregulation and AI-enabled business support, these measures could empower millions of entrepreneurs, he said.
The remarks assume significance as they come after the Centre last month appointed Nilekani to chair a high-powered panel on examination reforms following the Neet-UG paper leak controversy and widespread student protests.
On Thursday, he said India should deploy AI to improve learning outcomes and expand access to knowledge through Indian-language and voice-based interfaces. He argued that the country could become the world’s “AI use case capital” by applying the technology to sectors such as education, agriculture and healthcare rather than focusing on AI infrastructure alone.
“And I think it’s in the area of applied AI that India will become a leader because we will become the AI use case capital of the world as we actually deploy AI and make it useful. So, I think applying AI to change the lives of Indians at population scale, just as we did with digital public infrastructure, is really where it’s going to go. Once we demonstrate that, I think it will show how AI is actually useful and not just a technology,” he added.
He argued that India should focus on deploying AI to solve real-world problems rather than competing in AI infrastructure such as chips, data centres and large language models.
Nilekani said AI should be made available in Indian languages and through voice interfaces so that people could access knowledge regardless of whether they read English. He added that making AI available in users’ mother tongues, while accounting for the way Indians naturally mix languages in conversation, would significantly broaden access to technology and improve productivity.
He also called for portable social security benefits and digital credentials that workers could carry across employers as job mobility and gig work become more common.
Workers, he said, should be able to retain benefits such as pensions, insurance and healthcare when they switch jobs, instead of having them tied to a single employer.
“We need to make sure that all your benefits — savings, pensions, insurance, unemployment and healthcare — are completely portable so that you can carry them with you. You also need to enable people to carry their credentials with them. You need credentialing in a portable form, so the key will be creating portable credentials and portable benefits,” he said.
Nilekani said India must also educate its young population while creating jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities if it is to realise its demographic dividend.
