Big tech companies have recently been in the news for large-scale layoffs, driven by increased efficiency and optimisation efforts linked to Artificial Intelligence (AI). Microsoft, one such global multinational, announced earlier this year a reduction of 9,000 employees, representing roughly 4% of its global workforce.

In a recent interaction with Fortune India, Himani Agrawal, chief operating officer (COO) – India and South Asia, Microsoft, however, clarified that AI will not drive job losses and that the company has no plans to reduce its headcount in India and similar geographies.

“Nobody should be worried [about losing their jobs] [even at Microsoft]. AI is actually a catalyst for reinvention. (Historically) All of us have reinvented ourselves multiple times. In India too, when the computers came in, everyone was worried about their jobs going away. But nobody’s jobs went. We created more jobs as a society, as organisations and that's the same thing that's happening today as well. It is not about workforce reduction. It is about workforce evolution. You will see the colour of the jobs changing, you will see new kind of jobs that will come up,” Agrawal says.

For Agrawal, this is the time for companies like Microsoft to engage with their employees and upskill them to prepare them for the AI-driven world.

“Take prompt engineering for instance, it was never a job, never taught in any schools. There are now courses on prompt engineering, there are jobs which exist as prompt engineers, there will be data security and all those kinds of jobs that were very few that used to be there, now they will be in every part of the country, company and industry. There will be new jobs that will come into existence, each one of us will need to reskill ourselves,” adds Agrawal.

She says that while elimination of jobs may not be a cause of concern, reimagining roles might be. She said that in this reinvention, freshers, in contrast to popular views, will play a pivotal role.

“Early career professionals are in fact the people who are actually growing up in the AI age. They are more adept in AI than us. Any organisation that they go to which is not AI-ready, they will feel disillusioned. It is thus, on the organisations to skill their existing employees and welcome the new workforce which is already AI-ready,” she adds.

Agrawal’s assurances come amid rising uncertainty around jobs, particularly for entry-level and fresher positions.

When Microsoft’s layoffs received public attention, there wasn’t much clarity as to which geographies would be affected. Agrawal’s comments suggest that markets like India, where Microsoft has access to a skilled and cost-effective talent pool, are likely to be less impacted than higher cost, developed markets.

Earlier in July, CEO Satya Nadella had addressed the ‘recent job eliminations’ in an internal memo, emphasising that the company’s net headcount remains largely unchanged. As of the last reported figure of June 2024, the company had over 2.28 lakh employees across the world.

Meanwhile, Agrawal addressed concerns about potential changes to Microsoft’s investment plans in India under the Trump regime. In January, the company had announced a $3 billion investment over two years to build cloud and AI infrastructure in the country.

Agrawal claimed that despite the global headwinds, Microsoft does not plan to invest away from India or backtrack from its commitments.

“Microsoft has a mission which is to empower every person and every organisation, and we are very committed to every country that we operate in, we are committed to India. We have to live by the announcements that we have made. We will live up to every bit of it that we have set and we will keep our commitments to the country as progressive as we have always been. Nobody should be worried that Microsoft will backtrack from its investment commitments into the India market,” she says.

For now, the company is investing a part of this commitment in upskilling its workforce in India and other Indian STEM graduates by engaging with the Centre. Agrawal shared that over 24 lakh individuals have been trained in AI, cloud and related domains with 74% of these individuals hailing from Tier 2 and 3 cities, and more women receiving this training than men. This is a part of its goal to train 1 crore individuals in AI by 2030.

“And that is the path that we are on working across organisations and government. We invest a lot of time internally (as well) for all that upskilling so that we can work with our customers and partners in government,” she adds.