'AI won't steal jobs...We are the last generation to have stable, long-term careers': Microsoft India Head

Microsoft’s India and South Asia President Puneet Chandok has said AI will not take away jobs, but will fundamentally change how work is organised, warning that refusal to learn will be the biggest career risk in the AI era.

Speaking at the Microsoft AI Tour on Friday, which also featured an address by Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, Chandok said AI will “unbundle” roles rather than eliminate them.

“Will AI steal jobs? I don’t think AI will steal jobs. It will dissect jobs. It will unbundle jobs,” he said.

Chandok argued that the long-standing industrial-age model of learning once and relying on the same skills for an entire career is breaking down.

“You and I are the last generation to have stable, long-term careers,” he said, adding that future generations are more likely to build “a portfolio of things” rather than follow a single linear career path.

Emphasising continuous learning, Chandok said, “The real pink slip in this new AI era is not automation. That is what we are worried about. The real pink slip is refusal to learn.”

He added that professionals are “fighting guerrilla warfare against irrelevance every day” and compared learning to an oxygen mask, an analogy he linked to the lived experience of air pollution in Delhi, saying no one understands the value of oxygen masks better than a Delhi resident.

Nadella, who is on a three-day visit to India, used his address to raise a broader question about the evolution of artificial intelligence. He said AI models may be becoming a “commodity” and stressed that data is the most strategic asset for companies deploying AI at scale.

“In the experience layer, data is one of the most strategic assets, and it is one of those things that is super important in the age of AI. But you have to use that data contextually to the AI,” he said.

Highlighting on-ground deployments, Nadella said the Maharashtra government has been using Microsoft’s AI tools for cyber safety as part of a project in Nagpur, which has reduced turnaround time in cybercrime investigations by 80%. According to the company, the platform is already live across 23 Nagpur police stations, with plans to scale it to all 1,100 police stations across Maharashtra.

Microsoft is also working with several Indian enterprises on AI-led initiatives, including Adani Cement, Yes Bank, the Aditya Birla Group and LTIMindtree, Nadella said, underlining the growing adoption of AI across sectors in India.