‘When a billion Indians rise with AI, the nation will transform’: Microsoft India chief on India’s AI moment

Synthetic intelligence will basically reshape jobs moderately than eradicate them, and India is well-positioned to steer the “AI century,” Puneet Chandok, President of Microsoft India and South Asia, stated on Monday.

Talking on the Confederation of Indian Business’s (CII) “Democratizing AI Sources for Financial Progress and Social Good” occasion, held as a part of the India AI Influence Summit 2026 in New Delhi, Chandok stated AI would “unbundle” jobs into smaller, task-based parts as an alternative of changing employees outright.

“AI is not going to kill jobs. AI will unbundle jobs. Your job is a bundle of duties. What AI will do is unbundle it,” he stated, including that steady skilling will probably be crucial for professionals to remain related in a quickly evolving know-how panorama.

Chandok described the following part of AI as one the place techniques evolve from instruments into “digital colleagues.” The true transformation, he stated, will happen when AI strikes past being an utility on a telephone or laptop computer to changing into a real teammate—brokers with notion, cognition and company that act “along with your permission, however not your involvement.”

He additionally famous that AI might disrupt conventional enterprise fashions, significantly these constructed round billing by the hour. “AI doesn’t invoice hours; it offers you outputs. If AI can draft a authorized doc in 30 seconds, you can not cost by the hour,” he stated, signalling a shift towards outcome-based economics.

Highlighting India’s potential to steer globally, Chandok pointed to authorities investments in synthetic intelligence and cloud infrastructure, alongside a broader “full-stack” method spanning vitality, chips, tokens, fashions and purposes.
Microsoft has introduced plans to take a position $17.5 billion over the following few years to develop its knowledge centre capability in India, he stated, describing it as a part of a big infrastructure build-out.

Chandok emphasised that large-scale skilling will decide whether or not India capitalises on the AI alternative. “Should you’re not studying AI right now, in case you’re not studying day by day, you’ll be redundant,” he stated, including that the actual transformation will come “when a billion folks in India rise with AI.