Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to affect around one per cent of India's 5.4 million IT employees, The Economic Times (ET) reported. Initially, it may impact those working in sales and support roles. Generative AI is also expected to create additional revenue potential of $2-3 billion in the IT sector, the report quoted in a new study.
As things stand, there are 300,000 employees working in sales and support roles in the $245-billion tech services industry. However, in the next three to five years, around 50,000 employees' work may have an impact due to the AI technology, the newspaper reported citing a UnearthInsight study.
Generative AI will also play a role in the internal finance departments of firms. Roles like financial analysis, modelling, and forecasting are likely to be impacted. AI has an edge when it comes to processing large amounts of data and creating possible scenarios and regulation reports, the report said.
Notably, expansion of the usage of AI may not necessarily mean job losses but it may play an increasingly significant role in how certain parts of these jobs are performed, the study said.
Founder and CEO of UnearthInsight, Gaurav Vasu told ET, "It is not like the employees will be replaced." He added, "Google and OpenAI (the company that created ChatGPT) themselves say it will create additional jobs. There will be demand for new roles like prompt engineers and system consultants."
Vasu said that the fear around AI is similar to what we saw when computers were introduced in the 1980s.
Sid Pai of the Siana Capital told ET that Generative AI technology will have a positive impact on the global economy on a net-net basis.