After all the doom and gloom surrounding AI-triggered job losses, here’s some comforting news on a Monday morning. The latest evidence on AI and Indian work isn’t suggesting that humans are becoming obsolete. On the contrary, it seems like as more people use AI, the ones who truly excel at it are increasingly deciding what AI should and shouldn’t be trusted with.
There are two interesting signals that point to this trend. Microsoft’s 2026 Work Trend Index reports that 32% of Indian AI users are now “Frontier Professionals,” which is just a fancy term for people who are deploying agentic workflows with multi-step automation, thereby reshaping existing work patterns. The global average for this is 16%, which tells you something about the general readiness and attitude towards embracing AI at Indian workplaces.
On the other end of the AI continuum is Indeed’s inaugural Hiring Confidence Index, which gives India just 58 out of 100 for confidence in the hiring process. When you read Microsoft’s report in tandem with Indeed’s, it makes for a more nuanced story than merely screaming “AI is taking jobs.”
According to Microsoft’s report, as much as 78% of Indian AI users are using AI in ways which wasn’t possible a year ago, which allows them to work in novel ways, of course – this number jumps to 85% among Frontier Professionals. This is an interesting insight which goes beyond the age-old AI conversation around productivity gains inside a chat window – summarising emails, rewriting paragraphs, formatting spreadsheets, and more.
The Indian workforce is fast embracing agentic orchestration for reimagining AI workflows, as they move beyond AI pilots to broad scale agentic integration and deployment. About 34% of Indian organisations already have functional agent workflows running, according to Microsoft, versus 26% globally.
Also read: Is AI replacing jobs or creating them? Here is what LinkedIn data says
But even here, I feel, the most interesting data point is related to how humans are using AI in the workplace. Quality control of AI output is becoming more important for 63% of Indian respondents, while 59% pick critical thinking as the most important consideration. As many as 87% of human respondents claim they are responsible for thinking – even if it’s assisted by AI – and treat AI output as a suggestion, not the end goal, according to Microsoft’s 2026 Work Trend Index.
Before entering the workplace, Indeed’s findings point to a similar shift in job seekers and their expectations. According to Indeed, as many as 54% of Indian jobseekers want skills assessments to be more important than just reading a CV. Especially, Gen Z are increasingly demanding this more than any other demographic – where 63% expressed support for tests and task-based assessments.
Of course, this is a direct consequence of AI chatbots becoming accessible to all. When AI can let anyone polish their resume, where mediocre experience can be made to look exceptional, employers and genuine candidates alike increasingly want evidence-based assessment criteria to judge any applicant interviewing for a job description.
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It’s ironic that AI is also entering the evaluation process – how can it not, right? Spare a thought for all the overloaded HR folk, drowning in the avalanche of CVs and follow ups with potential candidates. Thankfully, according to Indeed, 58% of employers acknowledge AI improving their hiring efficiency. But candidates want guardrails and guarantees, which is understandable – 38% job applicants want companies to explain how they’re using AI in the hiring process, while 42% want human oversight on any final decisions.
At this point, it would be wise to remember that neither Microsoft nor Indeed claim their study be any official census of the Indian workplace. Nevertheless, they offer a tantalizing glimpse into how AI is reshaping attitudes around work, and the workplace itself, in India.
What the two reports cumulatively suggest is difficult to miss, with respect to how AI’s value for doing routine chatbot-related work is reducing, where humans are trying to deploy it in novel ways to do higher order work that truly unlocks value beyond individual efficiency. In doing so, AI-enabled work is increasing the value of human judgement and demonstrable skill.
Also read: Inside LinkedIn’s AI strategy: Hiring agents, skills-first jobs and future of work