‘AI to impact 1.8 cr jobs in manufacturing, retail, edu sectors by 2030’

new delhi: Manufacturing, retail and education sectors are staring at a “seismic” shift due to agentic artificial intelligence, and over 1.8 crore jobs are set to be impacted in these sectors by 2030 due to new-age technologies, a report said on Wednesday.

Manufacturing jobs will bear the highest impact with 80 lakh workers to be affected, closely followed with retail with 76 lakh jobs to be impacted and education jobs impact is pegged at 25 lakh over the next five years, as per the report by Servicenow.

The report specified that high-automation roles like change managers and payroll clerks are being redefined by AI agents that take over routine coordination, while “high-augmentation” roles such as implementation consultants and system admins are increasingly partnering with AI, and not competing with it.

There is widespread concern on the impact of AI on jobs, and after country’s largest IT services company TCS announced to cull 12,000 jobs accounting for 2 per cent of the overall workforce due to aspects including artificial intelligence.

Sumeet Mathur, managing director for Servicenow India Technology and Business Center, said agentic AI will create over 30 lakh new technology jobs by 2030.

It is also reshaping the workforce, and will “redefine” over 1.35 crore roles, he said.

“India has a generational opportunity to lead globally by developing AI-ready talent, redesigning workflows, and reorienting business models around continuous innovation,” Mathur said.

The company also did a survey of over 500 industry leaders on AI adoption, which said 13.5 per cent of tech budgets are already committed to AI adoption and a fourth of Indian enterprises are in the transformation phase. Data security tops the list of concerns for 30 per cent of Indian enterprises while 26 per cent of organisations “remain unclear” about the future skillsets required, the survey said, pointing out that this highlights the urgent need for strategic foresight and structured, cross-functional reskilling pathways.