Artificial intelligence is no longer just about breakthroughs in labs or pumping billions of dollars into data centres — it’s in our hospitals, courtrooms, classrooms, and on the battlefield. At Outlook Business, we believe that India needs a sharp, nuanced, and people-first lens on this transformation.
The Inference is our attempt to make sense of a world being rewritten by AI. In this newsletter, we bring you frontline narratives, boardroom insights, and data you can trust. Whether you’re an investor, founder, policymaker, or just curious — this is where the signal cuts through the noise.
In this edition of the newsletter:
2 March 2026
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The first rung of careers is disappearing
Arundhati Bhattacharya on the AI shake-up
India’s AI map mirrors the IT industry
AI versus the good samaritan
Humans In The Loop
The first rung is disappearing
We all have to start somewhere, and even small starts can lead to big outcomes. A teenage Steven Spielberg snuck into Universal Studios and operated as an unpaid intern for several months, picking up the intricacies of filmmaking at a young age. Closer to home, Mohan Singh Oberoi started as a front desk clerk and went on to set up the iconic Oberoi Hotels.
For generations the path to achieving success — be it in the arts, sciences or even business — started with apprenticeship. Ask anyone who has achieved greatness in their work and they will say that the foundations were laid when they toiled at the feet of their mentors and masters of their craft.
Many times it meant that newbies would have to burn the midnight oil and do grunt work for years. In the past couple of decades, things got better: interns didn’t always need to work for free and colleges made such gigs a part of their coursework.
Now, that stepping stone of learning the ropes of a profession is at risk. In an era of rapid adoption of AI tools, the grunt work is getting automated. Youngsters are struggling to get that start.
With AI’s capabilities improving and costs falling, especially for Indian users, such tools are fast replacing interns as the go-to solution for routine tasks. College students and fresh graduates are either finding it hard to get an internship or are facing the prospect of taking up unpaid roles as AI automates much of the routine work.
"Seniors used to say it's easy to get at least a three-month internship. But this time, many companies either didn't reply or said they are not hiring interns right now," says Siddhita Shahi, a final semester commerce student at Isabella Thoburn College at Lucknow.
The impact is visible across the board with AI solutions advancing at breakneck speed over the last several years. Entrepreneurs and managers are increasingly relying on tools like Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Midjourney, Google Veo, ChatGPT and Runway ML.
"Earlier, a brand team would easily have two or three interns managing social media calendars, conducting basic research, resizing creatives, drafting captions," says Himanshu Mishra, founder at a Lucknow-based marketing agency. "Now a lot of that is done through tools."
Small agencies and start-ups were once the strongest intern magnets. The industry experience they provided was invaluable to many interns, even if the pay was modest. But new-age founders are also increasingly using AI tools to streamline operations and manage costs.
"For someone with experience, it's easier to use Copilot in Excel or Google Veo than to handle three or four inexperienced resources," says Rishi Raj Shukla, founder of a luxury fragrances brand. Shukla has hired an intern but says a few years ago he would have needed at least three.
Managers are allocating more capital to newer AI tools, and at the same time, entry-level tasks are losing relevance. In whatever roles that still exist, interns and freshers are now expected to arrive already comfortable with multiple tools.
Mishra says the intern role has shifted more towards supervising output rather than creating everything from scratch. As a result, even those who are lucky to still land such gigs won’t be getting their hands dirty with the foundational work of their job streams.
Internships were once the bridge between theory and practice. If that bridge weakens, the impact will not be visible immediately. It will show up a few years later, when the industry looks for the next set of managers and founders.
From The Trenches
AI shakeup is real. But it's not the end
As the AI story plays in real time and every big and small announcement leads to endless debates, neither optimists nor pessimists are getting it right. In its transitional phase, AI may have been disruptive, but like every technological advancement that came before it, it will have net positive value contribution, believes Arundhati Bhattacharya, President and CEO, Salesforce, South Asia. "We need to have the mindset that everything we are doing is probably going to change," she says.
What she means by that is AI adoption is going to be deeper than tool adoption. It will change how work is done, the inputs companies rely on, the context in which decisions are taken, and even the customer segments being addressed.
"There is a lot of change that is going to happen and we have to be ready for that. Those companies that have got their heads around it are the ones that will be successful," she says.
The former SBI supremo points to financial inclusion in India as an example of how technology can alter outcomes at scale. For over a decade, banks had attempted to expand access to formal financial channels but had limited success. The breakthrough came when Aadhaar, Jan Dhan accounts and mobile connectivity converged. More than 550 million Jan Dhan accounts were opened, and direct benefit transfers helped plug leakages running into thousands of crores annually. As verification became easier, transactions became traceable, and credit could flow to people previously outside the system. AI, she believes, can similarly transform the delivery of public services in a populous country.
This, she adds, is not a short-term game. "At one point, ChatGPT was way ahead. Then DeepSeek came in and disrupted everything. Gemini came up and now you have Claude coming in and doing something else." Models will keep evolving. To assume that the model alone defines value is simplistic. Enterprises that reorient their processes, illuminate their data and embed agentic systems into workflows are the ones extracting real gains.
As automation expands, the roles will shift. "The nature of the job will change. The skills required for the jobs will change." In banking, healthcare and even job matching, AI can connect people to services faster and more precisely. For Bhattacharya, this moment is less about replacement and more about redesign. The shake-up will be real, but the road ahead, she suggests, will become wider with possibilities.
Numbers Speak
India’s AI Map Mirrors The IT Industry
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Delhi together account for over half of India's total Claude usage. Maharashtra alone contributes 15.5 percent, followed by Tamil Nadu at 13.2 percent and Karnataka at 12.7 percent. The pattern is clear — Claude's footprint closely mirrors the distribution of India's IT industry and urban economic hubs.
This concentration comes at a time when rapid advances in AI capabilities have cast a shadow over India's $280 billion IT services sector. Yet the regional and occupational data suggest that Claude's adoption remains firmly anchored within the same ecosystem.
Anthropic's Economic Index: India Brief shows that the largest occupational block of Claude users in India falls under computer and mathematics roles at 45.2 percent, a category aligned with software development and engineering. The most common task performed by Indian users reinforces that profile. "Modify existing software to correct errors, allow it to adapt to new hardware, or to improve its performance" accounts for 10.5 percent of all recorded tasks.
Even though India ranks second globally in total Claude usage, it ranks 101st in per capita use. The gap reflects both India's population scale and the narrow base of adoption. "Without addressing structural barriers related to income, digital infrastructure, and awareness outside the IT sector, Indian AI adoption is likely to remain concentrated."
Words of Caution
AI versus the good samaritan
If an elderly person approaches you in a crowded place for help with a smartphone, what do you do? Probably oblige him. That may be a costly mistake. The cyber crimes cops of Hyderabad recently warned citizens about an emerging biometric scam that plays on basic human instinct.
Fraudsters pose as helpless pensioners or middle-aged individuals at malls, metro stations or markets. They ask for minor assistance — checking a subsidy status, fixing an app, or helping them navigate a phone. The device may already be on video call or screen recording with permissions enabled. In those few seconds, your face and voice can be captured.
Police say such data can be used to create AI-generated impersonations and bypass verification systems. The advice is simple. Avoid handling unknown phones, stay cautious in crowded spaces, and brief family members about this emerging fraud.
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