AI Boom Shrinks H-1B Path for Indians in the U.S

The push for Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to threaten the employment opportunities in the US for Indians, as evident in the approval of H-1B petitions. While the US tech firms have ramped up hiring foreign nationals to run the AI systems, Indian tech companies seem to have drastically reduced the requirement for H-1B visa workforce.

The top seven India-based IT firms in US got only 4,573 H-1B petitions approved for new employment in FY 2025, which is a 70% drop since 2015. According to the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), the drop in the number is 37% less than in 2024. The Indian IT firms are using a much lesser number of H-1B visas while the US companies are preferring talent from other countries than India, including recent graduates for working in the AI-powered systems.

At the same time, the denial rate for H-1B petitions seeking continuing employment was 1.9% in FY 2025, roughly similar to the denial rate of 1.8% in FY 2024, and lower than the 2.4% rate in FY 2023.

TCS is the only Indian tech company among the top five for continuing-employment approvals. The company also saw extension rejection rate go up to 7% in 2025 from the 4% in 2024. This year, TCS received 5,293 approvals for continued employment and 846 for initial employment, which means a sharp drop from 1,452 approvals last year.

In 2025, only three Indian companies were among the 25 employers with approved H-1B petitions for initial employment.

NFAP executive director Stuart Anderson said that Indian IT firms have been employing lesser number of H-1B visas when compared to the US companies, which had already invested billions of dollars in AI. The data pertains to a time before the Trump government began cracking down on hiring high-skilled foreign workers, including increasing the visa fee to $100,000 for each new H1-B recipient.

US tech firms like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta have registered top initial H-1B approvals. In FY 2025, Amazon had the most H-1B petitions for initial employment approved — as many as 4,644. Next came Meta with 1,555, Microsoft 1,394, and Google 1,050. For the first time, the top four positions for initial H-1B approvals have been occupied by US firms. TCS is only Indian IT firm among the top five employers to receive approval for hiring new H-1B workers in the US. It got approval of 846 for initial employment.

Among Indian players, TCS stood in fifth place overall for initial approvals while LTIMindtree stood at 20th position and HCL at 21st position, struggling to make way into the top 25.