AI risks jobs but could make tech talent affordable, says Vembu

Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu said AI could allow one worker to perform tasks previously handled by larger teams, creating job risks and economic disruption. However, he said lower costs could help businesses that previously could not afford software engineers or digital marketers.

New Delhi: Zoho Chief Scientist and co-founder Sridhar Vembu on Thursday said AI-driven changes could help industries and businesses that previously could not afford to hire software engineers or digital marketers by lowering the cost of such services.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is enabling a single worker using AI tools to perform work previously done by much larger teams, Vembu said, warning that the shift could lead to a painful economic rebalancing.

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In a post on X, Vembu said that “any job performed on the computer” now faces the risk that one person using AI could do the work of 10 people, adding that the risk is becoming increasingly real.

“This does not mean 90 per cent of people working on a computer will have no work at all. Industries that previously could not afford to hire software engineers or digital marketers could afford them now,” the post said.

Vembu said the broader impact would be a painful rebalancing across the economy, adding that the only thing to do “is to accept that it is coming and be prepared for it.”

The Zoho co-founder said earlier this month that the company had cut its marketing budget and told employees not to expect the usual pay increases this year.

The business outlook for software is uncertain, and AI has raised costs dramatically, he wrote in a post on X.

Vembu further noted that server prices for data centres had increased four-fold and that AI usage was rising rapidly, leading to much higher expenses that the company was trying to control.

Earlier in May, Vembu cautioned that soaring valuations of the world’s largest technology companies, fuelled by investor enthusiasm around artificial intelligence, exhibited characteristics of a market bubble that could eclipse the dot-com era.