Anxious Youngsters Flock to IndiaAI Summit as Entry-Level IT Roles Shrink

Leaders. Politicians. Tech nerds. Silicon Valley Czars. Unicorn founders. Lobbyists. And the list goes on.

At India’s grand festival of AI, one of the largest in the Global South, you can hear money and deals being discussed in crores and billions. There is tech that is built from scratch, and tech that is stolen outright. There are real innovators and financial backers, but there are also posers.

Everyone has something to take and something to give. Amid the long queues and the chaos of the crowd, college-going students seem to form one of the biggest cohorts. And they are not here just to lose their breath over AI models and robodogs.

The summit, they say, could possibly lead to internships and, for some, even jobs. The anxiety is palpable among youngsters moving from one hall to another, going from stall to stall and asking if they can submit their CVs. Take Pooja, a final-year B.Tech student in Software Engineering. “We asked at a lot of stalls if they had vacancies for internships or jobs. They gave us their email IDs or the contact details of their HR,” she says.

Pooja is not particular about whether she works at an AI start-up or an IT company. “I am just applying everywhere… bas jahan bhi mil jaye,” she adds. Her four-year B.Tech course will end in June this year, but nearly half the students in her batch, around 18 out of 40, have not been placed yet, she says.

There is reason to be anxious with the rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI), argues Yash Singal, a Computer Science B.Tech student from Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU).

“You need to see that people more experienced than me are also losing their jobs. So even if we apply off-campus, people with more experience will be preferred over me. That is the real fear,” says Singal.

End of the Cost-Arbitrage Era

India’s IT sector was built on a cost-arbitrage model. That is, it profited from the cost disparity in services between different markets. But AI is changing the game. Tasks once outsourced, such as coding, customer support and data processing, can now be automated. Companies no longer need a large workforce of young graduates to handle routine tasks.

Data reflect a reduction in entry-level jobs amid the AI boom. The IT sector has reduced entry-level roles by 20–25%, according to a report released by consulting firm EY. Further, 40% of employers are expected to reduce staff where AI can automate tasks, as per The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025.

This is what brought Souvik (name changed on request) to the IndiaAI Summit. A second-year B.Tech student at the School of Engineering (SoE), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), he says they are not taught how to use AI in depth at the institute. “It is bookish knowledge. So I came here to understand how different companies are using AI. I also approached many people for internships. I even got the number of someone from the sales team at Wipro, and I hope they give me some leads,” he says with a proud smile.

Pooja, meanwhile, tried connecting with a few new government stalls that are yet to launch their websites. “They will need developers, so maybe I can be one,” she adds.

Devesh, a third-year Computer Science Engineering student at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University in Jammu, hopes to get networking leads. “Hopefully, this networking gives us some leads. Ultimately, it is very hard to get placements in a Tier III city,” he says.

Government Initiatives

On its part, the government has said it is focused on upskilling youngsters. At the IndiaAI Summit, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the right way to look at AI and job loss is by focusing on upskilling and reskilling. “We are making all efforts to facilitate reskilling, upskilling and new skilling,” he added.

The Union Budget also saw the government announce several new initiatives. It is planning to set up a high-powered ‘Education to Employment and Enterprise’ Standing Committee to recommend measures focused on the services sector as a core driver of Viksit Bharat.

“The committee will prioritise areas to optimise the potential for growth, employment and exports. It will also assess the impact of emerging technologies, including AI, on jobs and skill requirements and propose measures accordingly,” said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during her Budget speech.

Meanwhile, some believe that mastering prompts will help them go a long way. Swapnil, a third-year BCA student at the Institute of Innovation in Technology and Management (IITM), Janakpuri, says that for him, the way forward is to focus on learning prompt engineering.

“If you learn how to write effective prompts, you will surely get a job,” he says. “We are being taught how to build AI agents and how to use prompts properly. I also believe annotation has a long future,” he adds.