AI progress will not happen by drift: CEA V Anantha Nageswaran

New Delhi: Artificial Intelligence (AI) progress will not happen by drift, it will require political will, state capacity and it will require a clear national commitment to aligning technological adoption with mass employability, said Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran.

Speaking at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 during a session on 'The Future of Employability in the Age of AI', he said, India can become the first large society where human abundance and machine intelligence reinforce, and not undermine each other. “This will not happen by drift, this will require an urgent say. It will require political will, it will require state capacity, and it will require a clear national commitment to aligning technological adoption with mass employability,” he said.

Vineet Nayar, who is the former CEO of HCL Technologies and founder of Sampark Foundation said AI is automating sub-skills and it has been happening for many years. He warned that there are many people in the IT industry who are doing sub-skill tasks and that if we are not careful, it will lead to more unemployment. “We need urgent attention,” he said. He stressed that schools should introduce curriculum in such a way that students start imagining new solutions.

The amount of investment in technology will grow 11-14 per cent y-o-y soon and we need macro skills in this AI era, he added. He highlighted the need to create employment and the new curriculum should teach different problem solving skills.

Speaking at another session, Professor MS Vijay Kumar, MIT’s Education Innovation Movement said they have launched a platform called Universal AI and there is a set of courses for foundational AI learning. “Our intent is to reach a billion learners,” he said.

Many experts at the panel discussion highlighted the need to reskill employees.

Manish Kumar, MD and CEO of NSDC said the industry demands certain competencies and people need to reskill themselves . “AI is throwing us a lot of opportunities, education system is not going to change overnight, but we need to realise that change is necessary to become more creative,” he added.