66% of India’s AI Workers Fear Layoffs Within 3–6 Months, Survey Finds; Engineers Feel Safer

Key Highlight of NEWS

• 66% of AI and machine learning professionals in India expect layoffs or significant headcount reductions within the next three to six months, according to a Blind survey of 1,552 professionals.
• AI and ML workers reported nearly as much job insecurity as sales and marketing professionals, despite being among the workers most directly involved in the AI economy.
• Engineers appear less concerned about layoffs, with only 24% saying job cuts are "very likely", the lowest share among the functions covered by the survey.
• Hiring freezes and reductions in budgets or headcount targets emerged as stronger warning signs than formal layoff announcements.

Working in artificial intelligence may be one of the fastest-growing career paths, but that does not necessarily translate into a stronger sense of job security.

A new survey of 1,552 professionals in India found that 66% of workers in AI and machine learning roles expect a layoff or significant reduction in their team's headcount within the next three to six months. The survey was conducted by Blind, an anonymous professional community, in July 2026.

The finding is notable because AI and ML professionals are working in the very field driving much of the current technology transformation. Yet their perception of job security is almost as weak as that of workers in functions widely considered vulnerable to automation.

By comparison, engineers reported considerably lower concern about near-term job cuts. Only 24% said a reduction was "very likely", the lowest figure among the functions surveyed.

66% of AI and ML Workers Expect Job Cuts

The Blind survey found that 66% of AI and machine learning professionals in India expect layoffs or significant headcount reductions within three to six months.

The figure places AI and ML among the functions with the highest perceived exposure to layoffs.

Sales and marketing workers recorded the highest expectation of job cuts at 68%, followed by AI and ML at 66% and product and design at 65%.

Function	Share expecting layoffs or significant cuts
Sales and marketing	68%
AI and machine learning	66%
Product and design	65%
Engineering	58% overall at-risk sentiment
Data and analytics	51% overall at-risk sentiment

The findings indicate that working in AI does not automatically make employees feel protected from AI-driven changes in the workforce.

Instead, professionals involved in developing or deploying AI appear to be aware of how quickly the technology is changing the skills, workflows, and staffing requirements within technology companies.

Why Are AI Workers Worried About Layoffs?

The survey suggests that concerns about job security are not necessarily driven by formal layoff announcements.

Among workers who expected headcount reductions, 27% pointed to hiring freezes as a warning sign, while 24% cited budget or headcount-target cuts. Only 9% identified formal layoff announcements as the main signal.

This suggests that employees are watching broader changes in company spending and hiring activity to assess whether layoffs could be coming.

Hiring freezes can be particularly significant because they may indicate that companies are attempting to reduce workforce costs through attrition and tighter recruitment before resorting to large-scale layoffs.

Similarly, reductions in budgets or approved headcount can indicate that companies are reassessing workforce requirements as they adopt automation and AI-powered tools.

Engineers Appear Less Concerned About Layoffs

Engineering professionals reported a different level of confidence.

Only 24% of engineers said a job cut was "very likely", making engineering the function with the lowest share reporting this level of concern in the survey. Overall, 58% of engineers were categorized as having an "at-risk" sentiment.

Data and analytics professionals also reported relatively lower levels of concern. Their overall at-risk sentiment stood at 51%, while four in 10 respondents in the function said a job cut was unlikely, the highest such share among the teams surveyed.

The contrast is notable because software engineering has frequently been identified as one of the areas where generative AI could significantly change how work is performed.

However, the survey suggests that engineers themselves may not view their roles as immediately replaceable.

One possible explanation is that organizations adopting AI still require technical professionals to build infrastructure, integrate AI systems, maintain software, manage data pipelines, and oversee increasingly complex technology stacks.

AI Jobs Are Growing, but Job Security Remains Uncertain

The survey does not indicate that AI jobs are disappearing. Instead, it highlights the difference between demand for AI skills and employees' perception of job security.

India's AI workforce continues to expand. A separate 2026 report from Quess Corp estimated that India has about 920,000 AI workers, including approximately 257,000 core AI professionals and 663,000 AI-embedded workers. However, the report also identified shortages in areas such as generative AI, AI deployment engineering, AI governance, machine learning operations, AI security, and natural language processing.

This creates a more complicated picture of the AI job market.

Demand may be increasing for specific AI skills while companies simultaneously reduce headcount in other roles, restructure teams, or expect existing employees to become more productive with AI tools.

As a result, the AI workforce may experience job transformation rather than simply job growth.

AI Workers May Be Facing a Skills Shift

The rapid development of generative AI is changing the skills companies require from technology professionals.

Organizations increasingly need employees who can work across AI models, data infrastructure, cloud platforms, AI agents, automation systems, evaluation frameworks, and governance.

That means some conventional tasks may become easier to automate while demand grows for professionals capable of designing, integrating, monitoring, and governing AI systems.

The Quess report similarly found a mismatch between India's AI workforce and hiring demand. While roughly 72% to 74% of the country's AI workforce is in AI-embedded roles, only about 26% to 28% are in core AI roles. Meanwhile, approximately 66% to 68% of active AI demand is concentrated in core AI positions.

The data suggests that simply having experience with AI may not be enough. Specialized capabilities could increasingly determine which professionals benefit from the growth in AI adoption.

Which Companies Have the Highest Layoff Concerns?

The Blind survey also found significant differences in perceived job security across companies.

Workers at Salesforce reported the highest level of perceived risk at 81%, followed by Oracle at 80%, Uber at 77%, and PayPal at 75%.

At the other end of the spectrum, employees at Indian SaaS companies reported substantially lower levels of perceived risk. Zoho recorded 9%, while Freshworks stood at 44%.

The company-level findings should be interpreted as employee sentiment rather than evidence that layoffs are actually planned at these companies.

Blind's survey measures what employees believe could happen rather than confirming future workforce reductions.

What the Survey Says About AI and Job Security

The findings challenge a common assumption that working directly with AI automatically provides protection against automation.

AI professionals may have strong technical skills and work in a rapidly expanding field, but they are also operating in an industry undergoing significant restructuring.

Companies are increasingly using AI to improve productivity, automate repetitive tasks, and redesign workflows. That can create demand for new technical capabilities while reducing the amount of human labor required for certain activities.

For employees, this means job security may increasingly depend on the ability to work alongside AI rather than simply work in the AI industry.

What Does This Mean for India's AI Job Market?

The survey points to a job market that is becoming more specialized.

India continues to have a large and growing AI workforce, while companies are looking for professionals who can move AI systems from experimentation into production. The challenge is that workforce growth does not necessarily mean every AI-related role will experience the same level of demand.

Professionals with skills in areas such as:

• Generative AI
• Machine learning engineering
• AI agents
• MLOps
• AI infrastructure
• AI security
• AI governance
• Data engineering
• AI deployment
• Model evaluation

could be better positioned as companies scale their AI operations.

At the same time, workers in more routine technology functions may face greater pressure to adopt AI tools and demonstrate productivity gains.

AI Is Reshaping Jobs, Not Just Replacing Them

The survey's most important takeaway may be that the impact of AI on employment is becoming more nuanced.

The concern among AI workers suggests that even professionals building AI systems do not necessarily believe their jobs are immune from organizational restructuring.

At the same time, the comparatively lower concern among engineers shows that the roles expected to be disrupted by AI are not necessarily the roles employees themselves view as most vulnerable.

As businesses continue to integrate generative AI and AI agents into their operations, the workforce impact is likely to depend on the specific tasks performed by employees, the level of automation introduced, and the skills required to manage increasingly complex AI-enabled systems.

For India's technology workforce, the emerging priority may therefore be continuous skills development rather than simply moving into an AI-labelled job.