THE AI (Artificial Intelligence) Impact Summit 2026 at New Delhi has brought to fore the fact that India is well on its course to become a global leader in the AI technology that is expected to have a far-reaching and deep impact on life in general in India and elsewhere in the world. Having known how well India has done on the AI front, leaders of different countries are acknowledging the Indian prowess and are willing to follow the Indian model. The summit’s theme ‘AI for all’ says it all. It shows how India proposes to make the use of AI as the newest technological frontier -- led by none other than Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. His personalised interest in AI as a universally useful, multi-purpose technology has already begun demonstrating its positive effect on how India is forging ahead on this front. Multiple issues often dominate the discourse on Artificial Intelligence -- not only in India but also everywhere in the world. One of those issues or concerns are that AI is a guzzler of human jobs.

 

This concern was voiced also at the World Economic Forum a few years ago, but it appears to have no reasonable solution in sight at least until now. The larger Indian society, too, has to address this concern, all right. Yet, going by how India is handling the task of utilisation of AI technology, it appears that the leadership would be able to tackle the job-loss concern in a much more mature manner than leaderships of other countries may do. For, as one strong argument goes, if there is going to be some loss of jobs, there also is going be addition of countless more jobs through the application of Artificial Intelligence in industry and business and other organisations where the human component is often large and critical. If sizeable numbers of jobs are likely to be lost due to invasion of AI, then much bigger numbers of jobs are expected to be created as well due as part of the country’s AI usage. By those projections, India possibly may not face the issue of major job-loss due to AI. Minus that concern, AI is expected to prove a game-changer for a country like India where the leadership as well as people are smart enough to lap up every advantage of new technology and forge ahead.

 

The speed with which India has taken to AI as an all-encompassing mode of achieving higher growth is simply amazing -- mostly to the rest of the world. India is willing to spend massive funds to push AI’s usage through as many channels as possible. India is putting the right emphasis on human resource training in AI. India is making efforts to make cities AI-ready and AI-enabled. Not many countries around the world can claim to have such an approach to the usage of AI in almost every field. The AI Impact Summit -- the fourth of its kind in the world -- is expected to give a great AI push not just to India but also to every other country taking to it. India has proposed a 7-sutra (points) road-map to cover every imaginable aspect of the technology benefitting every possible segment of the society. It is not without reason that United Nations Secretary General Mr. Antonio Guterres has appreciated India as a venue to host the global summit.

 

The leaders of other nations attending the summit also have expressed similar views. To the unstated superpower aura of India, the AI Impact Summit has added another glorious dimension. Even as India goes about entering great trade deals with different countries or groups such as the European Union, even as it marches ahead on its strategic consolidation -- through acquisitions and indigenous manufacturing -- the world realises the power it is building with its folds. The AI Impact Summit will add another dimension to that image of India around the world as an emerging superpower. There is little doubt that India is looking at AI as a technology of future and it wants to remain on the forefront of its comprehensive and actual usage -- beyond cosmetic projection.