Goldman Sachs sees AI boosting productivity despite job risks in India
Goldman Sachs said 17% of work in India could be exposed to AI, while 8% to 12% of non-farm jobs face substitution risk and up to 48% may benefit.
Goldman Sachs said 17% of work in India could be exposed to artificial intelligence, while 48% of jobs could benefit and 8% to 12% of the country’s non-farm workforce may face substitution risk. For Goldman employees in India, that sets up the real question: which teams grow with AI, and which see headcount pressure as routine work gets automated?
The clearest strain falls on repetitive tasks that already fit machine patterns. In financial services, that includes document classification, first-pass research summarization, workflow routing and basic client-service automation. Those are the kinds of functions that can be thinned out even as total output rises, because AI can take over the first draft while people review exceptions, escalate issues and manage judgment calls.
Goldman has been making that same basic case for more than three years. On March 27, 2023, the firm published a report titled The Potentially Large Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Productivity, arguing that task automation could raise productivity. Its broader AI research has also tied generative AI to a possible 7% lift in global GDP, while warning that labor-market disruption is part of the tradeoff, not a side effect.
That mix matters most in India, where Goldman and other global banks have built large delivery centers supporting operations, engineering, analytics and middle-office work. If AI does not simply cut jobs, it can change the mix inside those hubs, pushing more work toward people who can build, supervise and troubleshoot AI-enabled processes. Employees who understand both the business and the tools are likely to gain leverage; those whose work is mostly repetitive processing are the most exposed.
The same shift reaches across New York and London as well, because Indian teams increasingly sit in the middle of global handoffs. As AI makes those handoffs faster and more standardized, the premium rises on workers who can interpret outputs, handle anomalies and solve higher-value problems instead of merely moving volume. Official employment data in India can also mask how tight the jobs picture really is, which makes any productivity gain tied to fewer people especially consequential.
Goldman’s figures point to a firm trying to balance two outcomes at once: more output from the same platform, and fewer roles tied to tasks that software can now handle. For India-based employees, that means career planning will hinge less on title and more on whether a role sits close to judgment, client interaction and technical fluency.
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