India's AI talent shortage leaves 10% of critical jobs unfilled as demand surges 660%

More than 10% AI solutions and machine learning engineer jobs in India waiting to be filled: Randstad Digital report

India faces a significant AI talent crunch, with one in ten AI solutions lead and machine learning engineer job postings unfilled. While India holds a fifth of global AI job openings, the primary challenge is a shortage of advanced skills, not a lack of people. AI-augmented developer roles have seen a massive surge, highlighting the urgent need for specialized expertise as companies shift from experimentation to implementation. New Delhi: One in 10 artificial intelligence (AI) solutions leads and machine learning engineer job postings in India are currently waiting to be filled, according to the latest Randstad Digital report. "AI Solutions Leads carry vacancy rates of nearly 27% in the US and 18% in the UK and 10.3% in India. Machine Learning (ML) engineers face vacancy rates of 8.2% in the US and 11.2% in India," according to the report. Job vacancy rate is the percentage of total jobs that are currently waiting to be filled, with a rate more than 10% representing a massive talent crisis, according to Randstad, the Netherlands-headquartered human resources consulting firm. Japan's manpower shortage is among the most severe globally, with a 46.8% vacancy rate for AI engineers and 25% for GenAI engineers, indicating a critical execution gap, according to the report. Hiring timelines reflect this scarcity. The time to hire AI managers more than doubled to 53 days in the first quarter of 2026 from 25 days four years ago, the findings suggest. The US (29%) and India (20.5%) together account for nearly half the AI tech job postings globally. "India is a global powerhouse, holding one-fifth of all AI job openings worldwide. However, our biggest challenge right now is not a lack of people, it is a shortage of advanced skills," said Milind Shah, managing director, Randstad Digital India. With enterprises moving from AI experimentation to implementation, AI-augmented developer roles globally have surged 597% since 2021, compared to just 28% for traditional developers. In India, the need for AI-skilled developers has skyrocketed, up more than 660% by early 2026. Randstad's findings are based on an analysis of more than 35 million global job postings between 2021 and 2026, including nearly 8.7 million in the US and 4.07 million in India.

Talent shortage slows AI project progress beyond pilot stages

India faces a looming AI talent crisis, with projections indicating a shortage of over a million professionals by 2027. Companies are struggling to move AI projects beyond pilot phases due to a significant gap in skilled workers, particularly in deployment roles. This demand-supply imbalance is driving up salaries and impacting enterprise-wide AI adoption across various sectors. India could face a shortage of more than 1 million artificial intelligence workers by 2027, staffing firms and experts told ET. The widening gap between demand and supply is emerging as a major constraint as companies race to deploy AI at scale. Demand for AI professionals could reach 2.3 million by 2027, against an available talent pool of about 1.2 million, according to some estimates. The shortage is most severe in production and deployment-focused roles, with generative AI deployment talent facing a gap of nearly 83%. Around 80% of employers are struggling to find the AI talent they need, while hiring timelines for niche AI roles have stretched beyond 90 days. The shortage is increasingly affecting companies' ability to move AI projects beyond pilot stages and into full-scale deployment. The talent crunch comes at a time when companies across sectors, from information technology services and global capability centres to banks, healthcare firms and manufacturers, are ramping up investments in AI. "The demand-supply imbalance is becoming more visible as AI adoption moves from experimentation to enterprise-wide deployment," said Sanketh Chengappa, director at staffing firm Adecco India. In generative AI, the firm estimates, there is currently only one qualified engineer available for every ten open roles. The shortage is being felt most acutely in specialised deployment roles rather than research positions. According to staffing firm Quess Corp, GenAI deployment talent faces a shortage of 82.9%. "India is already facing a structural gap of nearly 900,000 AI professionals," said Kapil Joshi, CEO-IT staffing at Quess Corp. India currently has about 920,000 AI professionals, but demand continues to outpace supply. Nearly 350,000 AI-related jobs were advertised in the last 90 days alone, Joshi said. "The challenge is no longer AI awareness but production-ready capability," Joshi noted. "While many professionals have AI exposure, only a small percentage can build and deploy enterprise-grade AI systems at scale." The hiring pressure is also driving up compensation. Core AI professionals are commanding salary premiums of 30-40%, while specialised GenAI engineers, AI architects, and domain-focused AI talent can attract premiums of 50% or more, according to experts. "About 80% of employers say they are unable to find the AI talent they need," said Neeti Sharma, chief executive of staffing firm TeamLease Digital. "The challenge is not just the availability of talent, but finding professionals with the right mix of AI expertise and domain knowledge." GCCs have emerged as one of the biggest demand drivers, accounting for more than 60% of AI-related hiring demand, she said. Hiring is increasingly concentrated in mid- and senior-level professionals, while companies are stepping up investments in reskilling programmes to build AI capabilities internally. TeamLease estimates that talent gaps in specialised AI and GenAI roles can exceed 50%. Enterprise readiness remains another hurdle. Less than 10% of enterprises are truly AI-ready from a data, governance and process perspective, according to Pareekh Jain, chief executive at market research firm EIIRTrend. "Companies are facing challenges in taking projects from pilot to production, but not because of a lack of AI talent," he said. Many organisations are still grappling with data readiness and governance requirements needed for large-scale AI deployment, although a slowdown in hiring and training by major IT services firms could create a talent bottleneck over time, he added.

What Indian Employers Actually Want from AI Talent in 2026

On-the-job learning and self-driven upskilling are emerging as the primary pathways into AI careers According to a joint report by Indeed & Nasscom, 50% of employers prioritise demonstrated AI capabilities over formal degrees, signalling a clear move towards a skills-first hiring approach. The change is not just in what employers value, but how these skills are built. AI capability today is increasingly being developed outside formal education. 32% of professionals build these skills on the job, 24% through self-learning, and 17% through peer learning, rather than in traditional classroom settings. As AI moves from hype to hands-on use, hiring is becoming more outcome-driven, with companies looking for skills that can take ideas into real-world execution. Some of the top 6 skills shaping AI careers in India right now: * Cloud & Infrastructure Integration - The most in-demand capability today, with 38% of employers prioritising it. As organisations accelerate digital transformation and AI adoption, professionals who can modernise infrastructure and optimise cloud operations are becoming critical to business growth. * Generative AI & LLMs - 37% of employers cite GenAI skills to be a top priority, as businesses move from pilots to practical deployment and from prompt engineering to real-world use cases. * MLOps & Deployment - 32% of employers prioritise this capability, reflecting a clear shift from building models to operationalising them. Employers are looking for talent that can deploy, monitor, and scale AI systems reliably. * Data Analytics & Visualisation - 32% of employers seek this skill, highlighting its continued importance. It remains the backbone of AI decision-making, with strong demand for professionals who can interpret, visualise, and communicate data insights effectively. * AI Ethics & Governance - With 29% of employers prioritising it, responsible AI is becoming central, with growing focus on governance, compliance, and risk frameworks. * Human-AI Collaboration Design - 28% of employers point to this as a key skill. The focus is shifting towards making AI more intuitive and usable across real-world applications, from customer journeys to enterprise workflows. The gap between learning and doing is shrinking, making individuals smart much earlier in their careers. As AI hiring matures, the advantage will lie with those who can show what they have built, not just what they have studied.

AI startups fuel talent war as hiring surges across India

India's AI startups are experiencing a hiring surge, outpacing the broader tech sector as companies transition from AI experiments to large-scale deployments. Driven by demand for generative AI and automation, recruitment is booming across engineering, product, and customer-facing roles. This growth, however, highlights a significant talent shortage, pushing compensation for experienced AI professionals to new heights, with leadership roles commanding substantial packages. India's AI startup ecosystem is on a hiring spree, bucking the broader caution gripping much of the technology job market. As enterprises move from AI experimentation to large-scale deployment, AI-native startups and AI-first companies are ramping up recruitment across engineering, product, research and customer-facing roles, driven by surging demand for generative AI, agentic AI and enterprise automation solutions. Recruitment and search firms said hiring mandates have surged in the past year, fuelled by fresh funding, product expansion, and growing enterprise adoption of AI. Jobs platform foundit said AI startups are among the most aggressive recruiters, with a 21% year-on-year rise in hiring as of May, far surpassing the broader startup ecosystem's 12% growth. Executive search firm Fidius Advisory is seeing a 35-40% jump in mandates from AI startups, while Careernet said AI-related hiring mandates are growing significantly faster than broader technology hiring. The bullish trend is visible across companies such as Qure.ai, Observe.ai, Fractal, and Redrob AI. Executives at these firms said they are expanding teams to meet growing customer demand and support product development. Emergent, kim.cc, SymphonyAI, and Ringg Ai are among other companies accelerating hiring, said industry sources. Experts also point to the rise of homegrown AI platforms such as Sarvam AI -- the latest to join the unicorn club -- as evidence of the sector's growing momentum. Healthtech startup Qure.ai is adding talent across AI research, engineering, product, and clinical domains to support its growing global customer base and expanding portfolio of healthcare AI solutions, said Poonam Ajgaonkar, chief people officer. Fractal is seeing strong demand for skills spanning AI, GenAI, data engineering, cloud, product development, and consulting, as well as next-generation areas such as agentic AI, enterprise AI platforms, and industry-focused AI solutions, said Divya Bajaj, director, human capital at the AI consulting firm. Felix Kim, CEO of AI-powered productivity and career platform Redrob AI expects a 40-50% headcount expansion over the next year. Most of the fresh hiring will be in AI/ML engineering, GenAI infrastructure, product development, and platform engineering roles. "For organisations that are building AI-first products, talent is becoming not just helpful but more like a true strategic differentiator," he said. "Investing in the workforce is turning into a critical component of long-term growth." At enterprise AI firm Observe.AI, hiring spans three distinct profiles -- research engineers, application engineers, and forward-deployed engineers. "The primary driver of our workforce expansion is enterprise customer demand," said Swapnil Jain, CEO. "India has extraordinary AI talent, and the playing field has shifted meaningfully." Demand-supply gap The hiring boom is however exposing a significant talent shortage. Despite India's emergence as one of the world's largest AI talent pools, experts pointed to a continued shortage of professionals with hands-on experience deploying AI systems at scale. "Individuals who can demonstrate evidence of building AI-powered tools and platforms are in far greater demand than those who have merely been part of larger technology or engineering teams," said Anuj Roy, managing partner Fidius Advisory. "Being hands-on is more sought after than ever before." Compensation for these roles has also increased significantly, he added. This imbalance between demand and supply is leading to hefty compensation premiums. According to Anshuman Das, CEO, Careernet Group, mid-level AI professionals are commanding salaries 15-20% higher than peers in traditional software engineering roles, while senior AI specialists can earn 20-40% more, particularly those with proven experience building and deploying GenAI and LLM-based products. Annual cash compensation can range from about Rs 25 lakh for early-career AI engineers to Rs 1 crore for senior individual contributors and founding engineers. Leadership hires with proven AI expertise are increasingly commanding packages of Rs 1.5 crore and more, said Das. While AI and technology roles account for the largest share of hiring at 38%, nearly two-thirds of hiring in AI-led startups is currently happening outside core AI functions, according to Foundit data. "Demand is increasingly shifting towards consulting, product, sales, and implementation roles as startups move from building AI products to scaling adoption and commercialisation," said Tarun Sinha, CEO of foundit. "This suggests that the next phase of AI startup growth will be driven as much by business and customer-facing talent as by engineers and data scientists," said Sinha.

Beyond Coding: 25% of India's AI Learners Now Hail from Non-Tech Backgrounds

Based on insights from 11,444 professionals, the report highlights how AI is reshaping India's workforce. With AI moving from experimentation to everyday adoption across the world, it is no longer a tool only for software engineers and technology teams. According to the newly released 'India AI Workforce Report 2026 by Scaler'- an AI-native technology company, AI is increasingly becoming a workforce-wide capability, with professionals across industries using it to improve productivity, accelerate career progression, and create new opportunities. The findings, based on insights from 11,444 professionals, suggest that AI is evolving from a specialised technical skill into a broader workforce capability. As organisations integrate AI across functions, over 50% career outcomes are expanding beyond software development into leadership, consulting, operations, marketing, finance and other business roles. The report also points to a widening talent pool, with increased participation from non-technical professionals, learners from Tier-II cities, and women advancing into high-growth AI pathways. From women breaking into technology roles that were previously out of reach, to learners coming from Tier II cities like Lucknow, Patna, Jaipur, Indore, Chengalpattu, Coimbatore, Nagpur, and others, AI learning is opening new career pathways. According to the data from the report, AI upskilling is delivering significant salary growth across all experience levels, with early-career professionals seeing the largest percentage gains and experienced professionals achieving the highest absolute salaries. Not only is AI becoming a career multiplier for young learners, AI upskilling is also attracting professionals across career stages, becoming a capability layer for the existing workforce in India. Some key highlights from the report include: The Indian Workspace transformation * Nearly 25% learners now come from non-technical fields, signalling AI's growing relevance beyond engineering careers * Nearly 50% of AI-enabled career outcomes now lie outside traditional engineering roles, spanning leadership, consulting, HR, marketing, finance, academia and other business functions The AI Talent Pipeline * Women are expanding AI's footprint beyond engineering, emerging as key contributors across HR, Academia and Marketing functions; women report an average 145% salary jump after transitioning into AI-enabled careers, while female QA engineers record the sharpest gains at 574%. * Bengaluru continues to lead India's AI talent landscape with 19%, followed by Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai * Nearly 1 in 5 AI learners now comes from Tier-II cities such as Lucknow, Jaipur, Patna, Indore, Coimbatore, Nagpur and more , signalling the growing democratization of AI talent across India AI career ladder * AI upskilling delivered significant career gains, with professionals reporting an average salary increase of 147% and early-career professionals seeing growth of 155%. * AI is creating new pathways into consulting, with consulting outcomes nearly doubling from 3.1% of learners at entry to 5.65% of overall professional outcomes * Software Engineer (34.77%) emerged as the most common AI career outcome, followed by Engineering Leadership (17.51%) * VPs, CXOs and Leaders in the field of Engineering Earn the Highest Post-Upskilling Salaries, Averaging 33 LPA Commenting on the release of the report, Abhimanyu Saxena, Co-founder, Scaler said; "India is home to one of the world's largest pools of technology talent, a thriving digital ecosystem, and an ambitious young workforce eager to learn and adapt. What excites us most about this report is where real transformation is taking root: in Tier II cities, among women professionals, and across functions far beyond engineering. AI is creating new pathways to opportunity, accelerating career growth, and enabling professionals to command a stronger compensation outcome. At a time when much of the conversation around AI focuses on job displacement, the findings tell a different story. For those who embrace AI skills, the technology is proving to be a creator of opportunity, and not a destroyer of jobs. India's AI talent story is becoming more inclusive, more distributed, and more impactful with every passing year."

AI, AI Sir! Indian execs back in the classroom for a fresh chapter

Online education companies such as Coursera, Eruditus, upGrad and Simplilearn are reporting a sharp rise in enrolments over the past year $2 trillion a year over the next five years - with generative AI, agentic AI and AI-led business transformation emerging as the most sought-after areas of learning. Artificial intelligence (AI) is fuelling a fresh boom in India's upskilling market as professionals across industries rush to acquire new skills to stay relevant in a workplace being disrupted by automation and generative AI. Online education companies such as Coursera, Eruditus, upGrad and Simplilearn are reporting a sharp rise in enrolments over the past year $2 trillion a year over the next five years - with generative AI, agentic AI and AI-led business transformation emerging as the most sought-after areas of learning. Coursera's India operation has recorded five GenAI enrolments a minute in 2026, taking total enrolments to more than four million $2 trillion a year over the next five years - the highest globally. The comparable figure was three a minute in 2025. upGrad said more than 90% of its learners now opt for AI-focused programmes across formats, underscoring AI's growing centrality to professional learning. At Simplilearn, GenAI courses account for more than 60% of revenue, while over 80% of its curriculum carries an AI-first focus. Eruditus said its strongest-performing programmes are those that integrate AI applications into traditionally non-technical fields, including leadership, healthcare strategy, executive communication and financial decision-making. The surge extends beyond software engineers and data professionals. Mid-career managers, consultants, marketers, finance professionals, product leaders and senior executives are increasingly enrolling in AI courses. "Upskilling has shifted from 'what do I want to learn' to 'what can I apply at work effectively and immediately', and that shift is driving professionals to move swiftly and more deliberately," said Chaitanya Kalipatnapu, co-founder, Eruditus. The company recorded close to a 25% year-on-year increase in enrolments in the March quarter alone. "This behaviour also tells us about the growing appetite for outcome-linked upskilling amongst professionals to either get career acceleration, job switch, or stay relevant in the current AI-heavy job market," he said. According to Ashutosh Gupta, managing director, India and Asia Pacific at Coursera, motivation for learning in India has become far more career-led. "AI, data analytics, cybersecurity and cloud computing continue to see strong demand, but learners are now moving towards more applied and specialised skills that help them use these technologies in real workplace scenarios," Gupta said. A clear example is agentic AI. "In May 2026, enrolments in agentic AI courses in India have increased three times compared to May 2025, showing growing interest in AI agents, automation and autonomous workflows," he added. Industry executives said that as companies embed AI into everyday workflows, professionals increasingly view upskilling as essential to future-proof their careers and improve productivity. Simplilearn co-founder Kashyap Dalal said 90% of learners over the past year were working professionals who were taking ownership of their upskilling journeys. Nearly 89% were self-funded rather than relying on employer mandates.

As Enterprise AI Shifts from Pilots to Production, India's Hiring Demand Hits 350K

Quess Report Governance, Runtime Operations and Evaluation Account for More Than a Quarter of Agentic AI Hiring Demand Quess Corp has released its India AI Workforce Analysis 2026. The report is a workforce intelligence study that maps how artificial intelligence is reshaping India's enterprise workforce across Global Capability Centres (GCCs), IT Services and Consulting firms, and Enterprises. The report finds that India now has an estimated 920,000 AI professionals across Core AI, 257K and AI Embedded, 663K roles. The headline is scale; the story underneath is readiness. Hiring demand has moved sharply from experimentation to execution, with employers seeking talent that can deploy, govern, integrate and scale AI within real business workflows. The findings suggest that as AI adoption matures, organisations are placing greater emphasis on AI governance, runtime operations, evaluation and quality assurance to ensure AI systems are secure, reliable and enterprise-ready. Together, governance, AgentOps, runtime operations, evaluation and QA functions account for 26% of hiring demand within the Agentic AI ecosystem, making them one of the largest talent clusters in the market. Other key findings of the report: The Three-Frontier AI Push: GCCs Build, IT Services Scale, Enterprises Embed India's 920K AI workforce is not a single market. It is a three-frontier ecosystem with sharply different hiring intent, capability depth and deployment maturity. The operating-model difference is visible in job descriptions. GCCs are hiring for reusable internal AI platforms, enterprise integration and governance. IT Services firms are hiring to deliver AI across client programmes. Enterprises are hiring selectively to connect AI to finance, risk, operations, customer experience and employee systems. The report identifies a clear shift from pilot-led AI experimentation to production AI execution. AI Job Families Are Expanding Across the Enterprise, Not Staying Within Specialist Teams AI capability is moving across enterprise job families. The report finds that 66-68% of overall demand from the 350K active postings is for Core AI roles, while 32-34% is for AI Embedded roles. This demand mix is the reverse of the supply base, where 72-74% of the overall 920K workforce sits in AI Embedded roles and only 26-28% sits in Core AI roles. Non-tech business functions now account for roughly 120K AI-skill-cited demand, led by Operations at 57K postings. Governance, Risk and Compliance is the pressure point: despite 25K supply, it carries 22K active demand and is classified as Critical. Commenting on the findings, Kapil Joshi, CEO - Quess IT Staffing, said: "What stands out in our analysis is the emergence of three distinct engines of AI growth. GCCs are building reusable AI platforms and governance capabilities, IT Services are industrialising AI deployment at scale, and Enterprises are embedding AI directly into business workflows and decision-making. Together, they are creating a new talent landscape where execution capability matters more than experimentation. Perhaps the most important finding is that AI has become a horizontal enterprise capability. More than 70% of India's AI workforce now sits outside traditional AI specialist roles, while nearly one-third of all AI demand is emerging from business functions such as operations, customer service, marketing, finance, governance, and workforce management. Customer operations alone could see 45-60% of workflows augmented by AI, while marketing functions are undergoing one of the fastest AI-led transformations." The report's workflow-impact modelling shows that AI adoption is being embedded into repetitive, coordination, reporting, service and execution-oriented activities. The estimates do not represent workforce replacement; they show where AI-assisted execution, automation, co-pilots and decision support are becoming part of everyday enterprise work.

Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai dominate India's AI talent map: Report

Nearly one in five AI learners comes from Tier II cities such as Lucknow, Patna, Jaipur, Indore, Nagpur, Chengalpattu and Coimbatore, according to Scaler's India AI Workforce Report 2026, a study of career outcomes among India's AI-skilled workforce. Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai are India's top five AI talent hubs, a report by edtech platform Scaler has found. Together, the five cities account for over a third of the country's AI workforce. However, the share of talent from outside these big metros is growing, the report added. Nearly one in five AI learners comes from Tier II cities such as Lucknow, Patna, Jaipur, Indore, Nagpur, Chengalpattu and Coimbatore, according to Scaler's India AI Workforce Report 2026, a study of career outcomes among India's AI-skilled workforce. Bengaluru led the metro pack with a 19% share of the AI learner base, the report said. Pune followed with 7%, while Mumbai and Hyderabad each made up 4%, and Chennai accounted for 3%. The findings are based on a study of 11,444 AI learners across India. The report tracked their career paths after upskilling -- the industries and organisations they moved into, and the roles and salaries that followed. Beyond the metros The report also found that AI is no longer just an engineering story. More than half of all AI-enabled roles now sit outside core engineering, spanning leadership, consulting, HR and data science. Women are emerging as one of the biggest gainers from this shift, the report said. On average, they reported a 145% jump in pay after moving into AI roles, often outpacing men in similar positions, it added. Leadership track AI learning is also accelerating the path to leadership, said the report. One in four learners moves into leadership roles after upskilling -- nearly three times the share of those who land dedicated data and machine learning roles. These roles also pay the most, with engineering leadership posts earning an average CTC of Rs 33 lakh after the programme. Abhimanyu Saxena, cofounder of Scaler, said real transformation is taking root in Tier II cities, among women professionals, and across functions far beyond engineering. "At a time when much of the conversation around AI focuses on job displacement, the findings tell a different story," he said. "For those who embrace AI skills, the technology is proving to be a creator of opportunity, and not a destroyer of jobs," he claimed. The report added that career gains hold up across experience levels. The average CTC increment stood at 147% overall, with the sharpest jumps among early-career professionals and steady gains even for those with over a decade in the workforce.

India has wide AI talent gaps in deployment, governance, security: Quess report

India faces significant AI talent gaps in deployment, governance, and security roles, with GenAI deployment showing the widest deficit. While the country boasts the second-largest AI talent pool globally, the demand is shifting towards production-ready skills, particularly in the three-to-five-year experience band, as AI becomes a horizontal capability across industries. India's artificial intelligence talent is concentrated in specialist pools and there are steep talent gaps in roles such as AI deployment and engineering, AI governance and AI security, according to the latest AI talent report by staffing firm Quess Corp. GenAI deployment has the widest gap at 83%, followed by AI deployment engineering at 72%, AI governance at 70%, machine learning operations (MLOps) at 68%, AI security at 67%, and natural language processing at 63%, the report said. The three- to five-year experience band carries the steepest demand at 49.5%, it said. IT services make up about 45% of GenAI demand, the report said, as more companies move from testing AI to using it at scale. BFSI and retail come next. BFSI, IT services and GCCs account for 60% of AI deployment demand, since these areas need strict, error-free systems. AI governance jobs are growing three times faster than overall AI hiring in regulated sectors like BFSI, pharma and healthcare, the report said. New data protection rules are pushing this growth. GCCs lead MLOps demand, making up 55% of it, as platform engineering becomes their biggest strength. This shortage is mainly in specialist roles, the report said. Hiring for basic AI and analytics skills remains steady, with smaller gaps in foundational machine learning (29%) and decision intelligence (17%). Overall, demand is moving toward AI systems built for scale, governance and reliable business use, it said. The report found that India's AI talent market has nearly 920,000 professionals, the second most in the world, with core AI skills, such as building models, agents and embedded solutions, who have used these skills in the last 90 days. In these segments, the report said, there are nearly 350,000 active AI-related job roles. IT services lead the talent market, employing 500,000 professionals, followed by global capability centres (250,000) and enterprises (170,000), with most of this workforce in embedded AI roles. "The biggest finding of our report is that India is not about AI builders. It is more about production -- the country is moving towards production," Kapil Joshi, IT staffing chief executive at Quess, told ET. "When we look at the demand-supply gap, the biggest gap is for roles responsible for production." In the three- to five-year experience band, there is active demand for 172,000 against an available talent pool of 247,000. But only a smaller, production-ready segment holds deployment-scale capabilities across open-source frameworks (LangChain), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), MLOps, and large language model operations (LLMOps) environments. The findings come amid growing fears among employees of losing jobs to AI. While most core AI models are still built by US companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI, Indian sovereign AI companies are getting a push from government schemes such as the IndiaAI Mission. The report found that demand is no longer concentrated in data scientists, machine learning engineers, or research roles. "AI capability is moving into software engineering, cloud, cybersecurity, product, sales, marketing, finance, HR, customer experience, governance and operations," the report said. More than 70% of the workforce now sits in AI-embedded roles, making AI a horizontal capability rather than a vertical function, it added. Tier-1 cities account for nearly 85-88% of India's overall AI workforce supply. Within the more specialised core AI talent segment, these cities contribute 93-95% of the workforce. Sector adoption is diverging fast: IT services and BFSI lead, retail, manufacturing and telecom are scaling selectively, while healthcare and pharma face the sharpest skill scarcity. Most of the workforce is reskilling to stay relevant.