India’s workers are taking to artificial intelligence faster than most, both in how they do their jobs and how companies are hiring. A new survey by ACCA shows that adoption is already widespread — and it is only expected to grow as businesses restructure roles around automation.
More than half of Indian respondents, 52 percent, said they trust AI to support fair and unbiased hiring decisions. That sits well above the global average of 43 percent. Younger workers are leading that confidence — 54 percent of Gen Z respondents backed AI-led recruitment, compared to 48 percent among Gen Y and just 27 percent among Gen X.
At the workplace level, 57 percent of Indian respondents said they already use AI tools in their current roles. And 86 percent said they feel equipped to learn and apply AI-related skills — a notably high number. Employer support is also picking up. Half of respondents said their organisation is actively offering AI skill-building opportunities in 2026, up sharply from 37 percent the previous year.
But the optimism sits alongside real anxiety. Job displacement remains the single biggest worry among Indian respondents. More than half — 53 percent — said the pace of technological change feels overwhelming, and 57 percent expressed concern about what AI means for their specific role. Both figures are noticeably higher than global averages. A third of respondents also felt that companies are investing more in AI than in the people who work for them.
Where AI in hiring can go wrong
The survey does not shy away from the risks. Experts flagged that AI systems trained on historical data are likely to carry forward the same biases that existed in past hiring decisions. They also pointed to a subtler problem — AI struggles with context. Career breaks, shifts in direction, unconventional growth paths — these are things a human recruiter might understand instinctively, but an algorithm is unlikely to weigh fairly.
Employers who spoke at an ACCA roundtable in India echoed this. Several noted that while AI has been genuinely useful for filtering large volumes of job applications, it has also screened out strong candidates that a human reviewer would have taken forward. The consensus was clear — AI can assist, but it should not make hiring calls on its own.
On the tools side, organisations are already using platforms like Power BI, Power Automate, and ChatGPT to improve efficiency. But concerns around AI hallucinations and data privacy are keeping most companies cautious about how far they let automation run.
What needs to happen next
The broader message from the report is that both workers and employers have homework to do. Employees need to actively build AI skills and find ways to embed these tools into their roles rather than waiting to be displaced by them. Employers, meanwhile, need to think carefully about how they redesign jobs — automating routine tasks so that people can focus on work that genuinely requires human judgement, creativity, and accountability.
The technology is moving fast. The question is whether the people and organisations using it can keep up — and whether they build the right guardrails along the way.
