Nilekani further said that coding as an activity will become much more productive and new jobs will also come in understanding client requirements. (File Photo)India will be the leader in diffusing AI technology and making it work for the people at scale, and with its help, the new jobs will come from the small businesses in future, according to Nandan Nilekani, Chairman & Co-founder, Infosys.In an interaction at Bloomberg New Economy forum 2026 in Delhi on Tuesday, Nilekani said that AI technology cannot be bottled up as there will be thousands of models coming up and it should not be looked at through “disaster marketing” lens.“India is already a strong country for small business. That is where the job creation will come because a small company of 3-5 people, you cannot really automate those jobs because they do very complex things in the morning, they will pick up things in the afternoon and stack the shelf in the evening and deliver. These are actually AI-proof jobs. So once India unleashes its small business economy, millions of small companies will hire a couple of people each, and that is how jobs will happen. So we will see a new job creation, enabled by open networks and AI, which is a paradigm we have not seen, therefore we cannot visualise it,” said Nilekani, in conversation with John Fraher, Co-head of APAC News, Bloomberg.While he did not predict any timeline for this to happen, he said Indian entrepreneurs and small businesses will benefit from access to markets, capital, knowledge, agents to make their lives easier, and become engines of job creation.Nilekani further said that coding as an activity will become much more productive and new jobs will also come in understanding client requirements.“The business transformation is just not about coding. In any technology, the technology is only 30%, 70% is governance, change management, transformation, guardrails, how do you make sure that AI bots do not hallucinate, and agents do not go rogue. New jobs will be in understanding the client requirement, in collaborating, in getting people to work together,” said Nilekani.On the question of tussle of supremacy between US and China over AI, and India’s strategic reliance on both countries to gain access to the technology, he said that AI is not the chokepoint and no single person or entity can own or control it as there will be many players in the sector.Story continues below this ad“Everybody is saying that AI is a general purpose technology, like fire, printing, Industrial revolution etc. The thing about general purpose technology is nobody can own or control it. You don’t think the whole world’s electricity is being supplied by one company, you don’t think the world’s books are printed by one printer and so on. AI is going to have a huge number of players, producers, and every week a new model is being announced. You cannot bottle this technology. It is going to become the environment,” said the Infosys Chairman.“In that part of AI, diffusing and making it work for people at scale, India will be the leader. Because we have the experience in implementing sophisticated technology at scale for the last several years,” he said.Nandan Nilekani also said that AI is important for improving India’s education sector.“That’s why I am bullish on AI diffusion and AI application. With AI, we can make a big dent in literacy and numeracy for millions of Indians. Speaking language to the computer will allow people to get the latest access to the information, whether it is agriculture or anything else. We will have agents making life simple for small businesses so they can do more things,” he said.Dheeraj Mishra is a Principal Correspondent with the Business Bureau of The Indian Express. He plays a critical role in covering India's massive infrastructure sectors, providing in-depth reporting on the connectivity lifelines of the nation. Expertise & Focus Areas: Mishra’s journalism is focused on two of the country's most capital-intensive and public-facing ministries: Ministry of Railways: Tracking the operations, safety, and development of India's vast railway network. Ministry of Road Transport & Highways: Covering policy decisions, infrastructure projects, and highway development. What sets Mishra apart is his rigorous use of the Right to Information (RTI) Actas a primary tool for news gathering. By relying on official data and government records, he ensures a high degree of accuracy and trustworthiness in his reporting. This data-driven approach has resulted in numerous impactful reports that hold public institutions accountable and bring transparency to government operations. Find all stories by Dheeraj Mishra here ... Read More Tags:artificial intelligence