Microsoft India President, Puneet Chandok, has described India as “one of the most exciting markets in the world for technology and AI”.
Speaking with the media on the US-based tech giant’s plans to expand its footprint to India, Chandok, who also heads Microsoft’s South Asia division, said the firm is “committed to India” and that they “want to move the country forward,” seeing India as key to global growth.
Notwithstanding the impact of global trade and tariff headwinds on conglomerates’ business decisions, Chandok said Microsoft operates in most companies in the world and believes in economic ties driving global growth.
“We believe in economic ties that drive growth across the world. We're committed to India more than ever, given the USD 3 billion investment [in AI and cloud], training 10 million people in the country [with AI skills], building institutions in India that are truly frontier firms,” he said.
Noting that India is leading the world in AI-drive leadership transformation, the company’s India President drew on the India findings of the recent Microsoft 2025 Work Trend Index that showed 93 per cent Indian business leaders intending to use AI agents to extend workforce capabilities in the next 12-18 months.
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“If you look at all the questions around AI adoption, AI excitement, agents in the workforce, for example, the question on how many companies are re-looking at their core strategy with AI, the global number is 82 per cent, India is at 90 per cent. So across the board, India is leading the pack, and that's something we should all feel very energised about,” Chandok said.
Advice to youth: Build on AI fluency
Terming AI fluency as “super important”, Chandok rebuffed claims that it diminishes cognitive abilities.
Urging the youth to upskill, he said it’s important to “learn to play around with these tools” to get a hands-on understanding of their use and build on “AI fluency”.
Such skills, stressed Chandok, cannot be learnt merely through theory or observation, just like fitness is gained by actually working out in a gym.
"This is not something you can learn in a classroom, not theory. I always joke that you can't get fit by watching others go to the gym. You have to go to the gym yourself. Same with AI tools. You can't learn by watching others use the tools, start using these tools," he said.
Exhorting professionals to start building with AI tools, the company’s India chief said he believes AI boosts creativity by automating routine drudgery as opposed to a recent MIT Media Lab study claims that raised an alarm over AI and its potential cognitive consequences and neural costs.
“It frees users to focus on value-adding, judgement-driven work,” he said, adding that fluency in creating and managing digital agents alongside resilience, adaptability, agility and growth mindset will define future workplace success.
"I think those three things: AI fluency, building AI and ability to build agents and work with them and digital colleagues, and third, just the basic skills around resilience, agility, speed, growth mindset will be even more important,” he said.
Generation of new AI job profiles
Many new roles that didn't exist 12 months ago, are now being created due to AI, Chandok asserted.
In April this year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had said as much as 30 per cent of the Redmond, Washington-headquartered tech giant's code is now written by artificial intelligence, or AI.
While acknowledging that AI now writes 30 per cent of the company’s code, he said there still exists a massive "tech debt" on the supply side in the industry that requires more engineers, software and applications. There are also new career avenues emerging from it, he pointed out.
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“AI orchestrator, AI agent manager, agent boss, prompt engineer... There are many new roles that are coming up and the question is, how do we make sure that we create those roles and job opportunities for people across the country?
Second, the color of the jobs will change... I think the skills required, if a lot of repetitive grunt work is taken away, drudgery is taken away, how do we constantly upskill our people to going back to build agents, to get agents to work for them, really use AI in the right way," he said.
Chandok suggests constant upskilling to be vital to organisations and adapt to evolving demands.
"And that's why we are excited both at Microsoft and across the country and across the customers about constant skilling of people on AI,” he said, and added that organisations are now “super agile”, constantly “readjusting based on the needs of our customers and the countries we operate in”.
India’s AI outlook
India has rapidly emerged as a frontier market for AI adoption, with global tech majors and domestic companies as well as startups sprucing up investments and workforce initiatives in the world's fastest growing major economy.
India's domestic AI market is projected to more than triple to USD 17 billion by 2027, making it one of the fastest-growing AI economies globally.
According to a recent report by BCG titled, 'India's AI Leap', the country offers a unique launchpad for scalable, cost-efficient AI innovation with over 700 million internet users, high mobile penetration, and robust digital public platforms like UPI.
AI has transformed sectors by crunching underwriting time by 70 per cent in financial services, boosting retail conversions rates by 10-15 per cent, slashing media production costs by over 80 per cent, and extending healthcare reach through advanced diagnostics and remote consultations, the report said.
"This momentum is fuelled by rising enterprise tech investments, a thriving digital ecosystem, and a robust talent base. India already has 600,000-plus AI professionals, with the number expected to double to 1.25 million by 2027," it further stated.
The country also accounts for 16 per cent of the global AI talent pool, second only to the US, a reflection of both its demographic advantage and STEM education pipeline, it added.
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