Economic Survey 2025 On State of AI in India: 10 Key Highlights
Here are 10 key highlights from the Economic Survey on state of Artificial Intelligence in India.
The Economic Survey 2024–25 has been tabled in Parliament today. Along with offering perspectives on the nation’s economic performance and influencing anticipation for the next Union Budget, the Economic Survey highlighted the current state of artificial intelligence in India, and its future course.
Here are 10 key highlights of what the Economic Survey 2024-25 listed on artificial intelligence:
AI is expected to outperform humans in several domains, such as healthcare, research, criminal justice, education, business, and financial services. Large-scale labour displacement may arise from this, particularly in the middle and lower quartiles of the wage distribution.
Fears of adverse effects of large-scale AI adoption appear realistic. With the Indian economy being predominantly service-oriented, with a large portion of IT workforce engaged in low-value-added services, these roles are vulnerable to AI-led automation.
India would need to expedite the establishment of enabling, insuring, and stewarding institutions to advance the workforce to medium- and high-skilled positions where AI can support human labour rather than replace it.
Practicality and reliability of AI models are core challenges that need to be overcome by AI developers before wide-spread adoption can be achieved. The other challenges include infrastructure for scaling AI and efficiency gains without compromising performance.
India can leverage its young, dynamic, and tech-savvy population to create a workforce that can utilise AI to augment their work and productivity.
Setting up centres of excellence is important, as reflected in recent budgets that focus on a technology-driven economy. This includes establishing AI CoE at top educational institutions across India and the announcement of a Rs. 1 lakh crore financing corpus to catalyse private sector innovation and R&D in sunrise sectors.
“Augmented Intelligence” is the key to the future of work, where the workforce integrates both human and machine capabilities. This strategy seeks to maximise individual potential and boost overall productivity at work.
Given the potential long-term consequences of AI-driven changes in the labour market, policymakers must weigh innovation against societal costs. The corporate sector must also handle the implementation of AI with consideration for societal requirements.
Given AI technologies’ enormous demand for water and electricity, sustainability should be taken into account. This warrants closer scrutiny of AI’s costs and benefits with necessary follow-up action.
To reduce the negative societal effects of AI-driven transformation and achieve inclusive growth, cooperation between the public and private sectors as well as academics is crucial.
