India, May 1 -- In The Driver in the Driverless Car, I warned of a coming storm: A jobless future driven by automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI). That future is no longer on the horizon - it has begun. But unlike in the West, where entire white-collar industries are already being restructured by AI, India has a bit more time. Not because it is more insulated, but because so much of its infrastructure still needs to be built - smart cities, modern digital systems, and scalable platforms for a billion-plus people.

That breathing room is a gift. But treating it as a licence for complacency would be a costly mistake.

Let's be clear: The foundational work done by India's IT services industry - code maintenance, software patching, inte...