Futurist and AI specialist Mike Walsh believes India could help reshape how the world's biggest companies work over the next decade. Speaking at the NDTV World Summit 2026, Walsh said people in India will have the chance to “change and redesign the way those companies think,” calling it “the huge opportunity of digital labor.”
Abundance and AI Agents
Walsh urged people to look at AI “through the lens of abundance” rather than scarcity, and said there could soon be more AI agents than people, with India among the most important markets. He cited Nvidia's vision of growing from around 35,000 employees to roughly 75,000, supported by about 7.5 million AI agents.
Without such support, he said, companies underuse their talent. He added that, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, an engineer earning $500,000 a year who isn't spending about half that on AI tokens isn't being fully used.
Trillions in Untapped Value
Walsh said that even if AI development stopped today, “there are trillions of dollars of value to be unlocked” by helping traditional companies combine people and machines.
Investors, from private equity and venture capital firms to SoftBank, are already looking for businesses well suited to digital labour, automation and robotics. For India, he said, the opportunity goes beyond outsourcing talent to “how you take your local companies and transform them into world champions.”
Why Humans Stay in Charge
Asked why humans would still be needed as AI agents improve, Walsh said the test should not be whether a machine can do a job, but what work we would still want people to do. Even if an AI could diagnose a serious illness, he said, he would want a doctor to talk him through it.
AI, he argued, has “never lived in the world,” has “no skin in the game” and faces no consequences. “I don't really believe that AI agents are going to wake up and become little digital gods. I think that's just kind of nerd fantasy,” he said, adding that the real danger lies in not empowering humans to make important decisions.
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Rethinking Manufacturing
On fears of job losses as the auto industry shifts to EVs and AI, Walsh said India should look beyond building combustion-engine cars and think about its place in global mobility, including design, commissioning and training the AI models behind it.
On AI Doom
Asked about warnings of AI catastrophe, Walsh said futurists should be optimistic but “street smart,” asking who benefits from such narratives. For every devastating story, he added, there is one of hope. “The future we end up in is the future we choose to build,” he said.
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