74% Indian Workers Worried AI Will Replace Their Jobs, says Microsoft Report

New Delhi: More than three-fourth of people in India surveyed are willing to delegate as much work as possible to artificial intelligence, a Microsoft report said on Thursday.

According to Microsoft Work Trend Index 2023 report, 90% Indian leaders say employees they hire will need new skills to be prepared for the growth of AI (artificial intelligence).

The research based on a survey of 31,000 people across 31 countries, including about 1,000 from India found that 74% of Indian workers say they're worried AI will replace their jobs.

"Research shows 83 per cent of Indian employees are willing to delegate as much work as possible to AI to lessen their workload," the report said. More than 3 in 4 Indian leaders (84%) said that they are concerned about lack of innovation.

"The primary culprit disrupting productivity is inefficient meetings, as reported by 46 per cent of Indian workers who feel that their absence in half or more of their meetings would go unnoticed by colleagues," the report said.

According to the report, every employee, not just AI experts, will need new core competencies such as prompt engineering in their day-to-day.

"90 per cent of Indian leaders say employees they hire will need new skills to be prepared for the growth of AI. 78 per cent of Indian workers say they don't currently have the right capabilities to get their work done," the report said.

Microsoft India Country Head – Modern Work Bhaskar Basu said that as the nature of work evolves, AI promises to be the biggest transformation to work.

"The next generation of AI will unlock a new wave of productivity growth, removing the drudgery from our jobs and freeing us to rediscover the joy of creation. The opportunity and responsibility for every organisation and leader is to get AI right -- testing and experimenting with new ways of working to build a brighter future of work for everyone," he said.