Three out of five managers expect AI training to become core in 5 years, shows Microsoft study

Microsoft’s latest India Work Trend Index reveals that almost three out of five company managers are expecting AI training to becoming a core responsibility in five years. Released on Wednesday, the report stated that as a result, half of the surveyed leaders have identified upskilling as their top priority over in next year and a half.

The upskilling focus comes amid the growing use-cases of AI that have made it integral for technical proficiency, and fluency in this new technology. Additionally, this is needed to create ethical awareness and build cross-functional agility, ensuring that human employees are better able to engage with AI agents across business functions, the report stated.

“India is firmly in its AI-first era, with AI agility accelerating at an unprecedented pace. We’re seeing a workforce that’s not just adopting AI but embedding it into the fabric of everyday work—leveraging its speed, precision, and 24/7 availability to drive meaningful transformation,” said Puneet Chandok, President, Microsoft India & South Asia, in a statement.

According to the report, the companies are focussed on hiring such that their AI needs are met. Almost 92% of the leaders surveyed revealed that they were keen on creating AI-specific jobs. Some of these jobs included Agent bosses, AI workflow designers, and software operators. A little less than 60% of these leaders expected teams ‘to build multi-agent systems to automate complex tasks.’

The global work trend index was released in April where Microsoft analysed LinkedIn labour market trends, assessed survey data from 31,000 workers across 31 countries, and multi-million Microsoft 365 productivity signals.

“India’s frontier firms are already taking shape. Built on intelligence-on-tap and hybrid teams of humans and agents, these organisations scale faster, operate with agility, and deliver value at speed. The blueprint for the future of work is being written right here,” Chandok added.

In this effort, Manpreet Singh Ahuja, chief digital officer, PwC India shared that the consulting company had extended access to their AI platform to all 30,000 of its India employees. As part of its billion-dollar commitment, the company had seen almost three-fourth of adoption rate, within seven months.

“PwC was one of the first large firms to make a billion-dollar commitment at a time when the world was still debating whether AI could deliver real ROI. That investment was primarily aimed at transforming us into an AI-first organisation. Today, our leaders are hands-on with AI, and we’re seeing deeper returns and tangible impact from that commitment,” Ahuja added.