India’s Summit Clears the Air on ‘AI & Layoffs’ Fear

Amid the increasing buzz over Artificial Intelligence (AI) disrupting jobs, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman provides some solace stating that AI would reshape work, ambition and even human purpose.

While people are anxious and petrified that AI would spell doom to their future, Altman says AI will boost human strengths, that cannot be replicated by machines.

Altman, while speaking at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, said that human emotions like empathy, connection and social responsibility would become valuable and strong in an AI-driven environment.

He also said the present-day jobs could likely be thought as silly by people 500 years ago while those 500 years from now could think of us as impossibly rich people, playing games and trying new ways to pass time. So it is our perception that makes the difference, he pointed out. He also lauded India for doing a lot of work in AI and also in adoption of AI.

Meanwhile, Gnerative AI, it is being estimated, would add trillions of dollars to the global economy in the next decade.

The Summit brought together leaders of the tech industry, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayaen, and many others.  

Tech giant and founder of Sun Microsystems, Vinod Khosla was also optimistic about India’s interest and role in AI. He proposed for affordable healthcare and even free AI-powered doctors, teachers for everyone, and said it could even become a reality.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai expressed confidence that AI can improve billions of lives and solve some of the hardest problems in science.

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said India can become a leader in AI as the number of people using AI are growing immensely.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei stressed on ensuring that AI systems are safe and predictable and keep their functioning under control, in various democratic countries.

Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran framed AI as a transformative infrastructure shift that can be compared to steam engines, electricity and the internet. He wanted the AI tools to reach the “last person” so that accessibility will define the technology’s societal impact.