India Must Confront AI's Social Costs: A Looming Challenge for Jobs and Society

• AI's rapid adoption in boardrooms overlooks potential social costs, especially labor displacement.
• India's massive youth population (800M under 35) and informal labor market face significant job disruption risks from AI.
• Efficiency gains from AI could lead to large-scale workforce rationalization in manufacturing and services.
• Policymakers must urgently develop a national workforce transition framework, enhance regulatory capacity, and invest in broad human capital.
• The education and skills pipeline is currently unprepared, and traditional IT models are already feeling pressure from generative AI.