In Focus by The Hindu In Focus-Parley | Have AI products begun disrupting India’s IT services sector?
Feb 26, 2026
Alaganambi Welkin, union leader for IT/ITES workers, speaks on layoffs, protections and reskilling. Kishan Sundar, CTO-focused tech leader, covers enterprise AI adoption and productivity shifts. They debate which entry-level roles are vulnerable, whether AI is substitution or augmentation, India’s role as consumer versus creator of models, and the need for just transitions and corporate reskilling.
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AI Washing Masks Cost Cutting
- AI is being used as a cover for cost-cutting called "AI washing" rather than the primary cause of layoffs.
- Alaganambi Welkin says companies historically use tech hype peaks to restructure, even while developers adopt AI tools for debugging and development.
Intelligence Arbitrage Shrinks Squads But Expands Roles
- Generative AI is raising developer productivity and touching every role in the software lifecycle, shifting from labor arbitrage to intelligence arbitrage.
- Kishan Sundar explains squads can shrink (8–10 to 3–5) while roles shift toward assessing, refactoring, and context engineering.
BPO And KPO Roles Face Direct Automation Risk
- Low-end BPO/KPO and repetitive call-center roles are explicitly vulnerable to agentic AI automation.
- Alaganambi Welkin notes a 4,000–5,000 seat call center could need only 10–15 people for validation and retraining after automation.