Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani says fears that AI will cause job losses are 'hogwash' and 'disaster marketing'

Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani said on 13 October 2026 that the idea AI will displace human workers is "hogwash" and that talk of AI job losses "is all disaster marketing to suit the interests of large capital". Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi, the Infosys co-founder acknowledged that coding is "getting automated" but argued it is a small part of a services project: "Seventy percent is governance, change management, transformation, guardrails. How do you make sure AI bots don't hallucinate? How do you make sure agents don't go rogue?" He said the new jobs will be "in understanding client requirements, in collaborating, in getting people to work together", and that "we are going to see only more work coming our way", while companies will have to transform themselves and reskill their workers. Nilekani has a direct stake: Infosys and its Indian IT rivals built their business on large teams of engineering graduates writing code for global clients, and Infosys shares have fallen about 45% over two years as AI coding tools improved, according to Bloomberg. His remarks came a day after the IMF's Kristalina Georgieva warned that AI is a slow-moving tsunami for the labour market. This is a statement, not a job cut, so it does not touch the AI layoffs tracker.