AI Impact Summit 2026: Job displacement, data battles and the upskilling race, here’s what tech leaders say

New Delhi is hosting the AI Impact Summit from February 16 to 20, 2026, positioning India at the centre of a rapidly evolving global conversation on artificial intelligence. The summit follows the AI Action Summit, the AI Seoul Summit and the AI Safety Summit, three gatherings that moved the global discourse from AI safety concerns to coordinated action frameworks.If Bletchley Park was about risk, Seoul about regulatory alignment and Paris about implementation, New Delhi’s summit is going to gauge impact, particularly in education systems, career technologies and workforce transformation. Vineet Nayar, Founder-Chairman and CEO of Sampark Foundation and former CEO of HCL Technologies, did not indulge in diplomatic caution. He chose blunt arithmetic. He said in the summit as reported by ANI:“Two things are very evident- 50% of the jobs are going to go away because they will get automated, but also, there will be 50% more jobs. The number of jobs created by using technology is very large...The fact that India is leading the way in reimagining the world with AI is noteworthy. So far, India has been a follower of technology, and it is now seeking global attention by articulating what AI's use cases should be for social impact. This summit is very timely as it will change the vocabulary of India's participation in redefining AI and its impact.”Nayar didn’t mince words and served a reality check. Automation is not a distant possibility; it is an economic inevitability. His arguments are no longer a far cry or dystopian. The jobs lost will be matched, perhaps exceeded, by jobs created. The real question is whether India prepares for the transition or watches it grow passively.He went further, puncturing the comfortable assumption that large corporations will absorb displaced workers.“...From an employment point of view, I think it is very important for us to understand that Indian companies, including Indian IT companies, are going to be profit-driven and therefore if you believe that they are going to create employment you must be dreaming. Therefore, the question is how do we create employment in this environment, and that employment comes from mass scale startups, which is what this government has already doing. So, how do we create new sets of people who are trying to solve new sets of problems not new sets of technology and if we do that we will get it right.”His emphasis on startups is telling. In his view, innovation is not merely about building better algorithms; it is about solving real problems at scale. That is where employment will emerge.Perhaps the sharpest moment in Nayar’s intervention came when he addressed data ownership, the uncomfortable fault line beneath AI optimism.“I think we as Indians have to be very careful about who does data belong to and that is the debate we have a problem with. The LLM models which exist worldwide are far superior than the Indian models. Unfortunately, in India, we never develop products, so therefore we do not have SLMs and LLMs which are world-class. On one side, we have global LLM products which are coming to India and trading on our Indian data. Should we allow that or should we not allow that? But on the other side if we don't allow that then we have the data but we don't have the LLM models.”He further added, “So, how do we encourage technology completely to develop the LLM models. This needs radicals strategic thinking and a very important aspect otherwise we will either give up a data. So, I think it's a very critical aspect for us to think about - who does this data belong, what is the kind of incentives we are going to give to develop LLM technologies or SLM technologies fast so that we train on our data otherwise an LLM will come in with our data and we'll immediately see return and we'll celebrate and we will do all these kind of press releases but the India will lose a competitive advantage on something which is very critical for the next decade.”His warning carried weight. If India supplies the data but not the models, it risks becoming a market rather than a maker.“We need to encourage imaginative thinking. The new curriculum on AI is not about AI technology but about problem-solving skills.” That line may well outlast the summit itself. AI literacy, in this framing, is not about coding syntax. It is about cognitive flexibility.Anurag Mairal, Adjunct Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, approached AI from a different vantage point, employability in healthcare.He said to ANI, “I just spoke on employability in the age of AI...The risks to jobs from AI are more routine and mundane tasks. I think India has the opportunity to create 10 million jobs that would be healthcare professionals. In my opinion, it will create more jobs in healthcare.His optimism rests on a simple premise: Automation trims repetition but expands expertise. In healthcare, where human judgement and empathy remain indispensable, AI may amplify capacity rather than replace it.Alok Agrawal, Co-Founder of AI4India, distilled the workforce debate into one imperative by telling the ANI, “AI is here to stay, and the most important thing is to upskill, focusing on AI...There is significant awareness of AI and what people can do with it...After this summit, India's position in AI will be much higher.”There is a quiet confidence in that assessment. Awareness, he suggests, is no longer the barrier. Action is.Sanjeev Bhikchandani, Founder of InfoEdge, offered a balanced view. “AI is both a threat and an opportunity. Some jobs will be lost, and many will be created. The way forward is to upskill and learn AI platforms. To have this AI Summit here is very good as it brings focus on AI, which is a huge force and an emerging technology.”Between threat and opportunity lies preparation. And preparation, in every conversation here, translates into reskilling at scale.In the long run of the technology, one theme stands out: India is no longer content to merely adopt technology. It wants to shape it.But shaping AI demands uncomfortable decisions, about data, incentives, product development and curriculum reform. It requires strategic patience in a world addicted to quarterly results.The AI Impact Summit 2026 will conclude with statements and frameworks. Yet its real measure will lie elsewhere, in classrooms that teach problem-solving rather than rote coding, in startups that solve local challenges with global tools, and in policies that protect data without isolating innovation.AI is not waiting for consensus. The only question is whether India will move from being a vast user base to becoming a decisive architect in the decade ahead.(With inputs from ANI)