Economic Survey Stresses Focus On Rapid AI Adoption

SUMMARY

Economic Survey highlights rapid adoption of artificial intelligence in India’s services sector, making impacts in sectors, including banking, finance, healthcare, telecom, retail and transport

Currently, India is home to more than 200 GenAI startups, which raised over $1.2 Bn in funding between 2020 and the third quarter of 2024

The central government recognised that a strong social infrastructure will help graduate workforce towards medium and high skilled jobs, where AI can augment their efforts than the possibility of being replaced

The Economic Survey 2024-25 tabled by the union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Parliament today (January 31), highlights rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in India’s services sector, making impacts in sectors, including banking, finance, healthcare, telecom, retail and transport.

The report further said that the services sector stands out for its swift embrace of AI, thanks to national initiatives and cutting-edge technologies that are reshaping operations across industries.

AI enhances customer experiences, operational efficiency, and fraud detection in banking; optimizes networks in telecom; improves personalized marketing in retail; and streamlines logistics through advanced route optimization and robotic systems.

In 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India should lead the AI revolution and called on the country’s tech ecosystem to ensure this outcome.

Currently, India is home to more than 200 GenAI startups, which raised over $1.2 Bn in funding between 2020 and the third quarter of 2024.

The survey also said that the central government recognised that a strong social infrastructure will help graduate workforce towards medium and high skilled jobs, where AI can augment their efforts than the possibility of being replaced, which would essentially consume a long time to build such an infrastructure.

It would also require an enormous amount of intellectual and financial resources to achieve the goal.

This has been addressed at a time when the height of unemployment is yet to come down. As per Inc42’s Indian startup layoff tracker, 2024 saw more than 9K startup employees losing their jobs against over 17K in 2023.

Most of these brands that announced job cuts were largely attributed to the company’s march towards profitability and cutting of redundant roles automated by AI.

For instance, audio entertainment platform Pocket FM announced a restructuring exercise to cut jobs of about 75 employees to ensure its long-term sustainability in the market, earlier this month. Meanwhile, finfluencer Sharan Hegde’s financial edtech platform, The 1% Club laid off 15% of its total workforce on account of AI-led automation, in November 2024.