AIdea report 2025

AIdea 2025 report - Transforming work with GenAI: EY India jobs study

In India GenAI has the potential to drive productivity gains, impacting millions of workers and redefining the future of work.

EY conducted a study of over 10,000 tasks across jobs in critical industries that contribute to the Indian economy. To assess GenAI’s impact on productivity, tasks were analyzed based on exposure (potential impact of GenAI), complementarity (human oversight needed) and intensity (frequency of tasks analyzed in granular time units). A ‘Productivity Uplift’ Indicator was created, to quantify this potential impact in terms of Automation (elimination of the task), Augmentation (doing the same task better using GenAI) and Amplification (enhancing the nature of the task and making it richer).

This allowed us to analyze productivity gains at job role, functional and organizational levels. Our analysis reveals that 24% of tasks can be fully automated, while time spent on another 42% can be significantly reduced, freeing up 8-10 hours per week for corporate workers. This translates to a productivity boost of 2.61% by 2030—equivalent to six years of growth—significantly affecting India’s 38 million employees.

 

The largest productivity gains from GenAI are expected in the services sector due to its higher labor share in gross output, while manufacturing and construction will see smaller impacts. However, even in these sectors, AI can drive efficiencies through better capital deployment and resource utilization, ultimately lowering labour expenses and improving overall cost efficiency.

 

Realizing this potential requires reimagining processes, redefining workflows and reskilling the workforce. The successful adoption of GenAI requires clear strategies, piloting use cases, and scaling solutions, alongside reimagining processes, redefining KPIs, and targeted reskilling. Large-scale upskilling initiatives, supported by public-private partnerships and AI-focused training programs, are crucial to bridging the skill gap. With investments in skills, data and infrastructure, GenAI can drive economic productivity and ensure a future-ready workforce for India.

GenAI will change ‘knowledge work’ — everyone from entry-level number crunchers to heads of business units and C-suite executives will see their jobs evolve over the next decade.

Productivity gains across key sectors

This graph illustrates the labor cost as a percentage of gross output on the x-axis and the percentage productivity improvement through AI on the y-axis. The size of the bubble represents the potential labor efficiencies created by AI for the industry.


Discover more about the AIdea 2025 report -  How much productivity can GenAI unlock in India


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