In offices across the world, the conversation around artificial intelligence is no longer about what might happen. It is now about the rapid pace of transformation that is already happening.
Employers see opportunity in automating work, while employees worry that software might quietly replace them. The focus often falls on junior staff, whose roles are easiest to automate. However, the path from potential to complete replacement is not linear and precisely predictable.
AI promises speed and scale. Generative tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot can write emails, code software, summarise research and answer customer questions in seconds. This is a clear threat to junior workers; why pay an employee to sift data and write drafts when a tool can do it faster and cost less?
Some firms have started to shave off employees and are depending heavily on generative tools. In Australia, Deloitte, the consulting firm, used AI to help produce a report for the federal government. It was a policy review for the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. However, the report raised red flags when experts found it cited academic references that did not exist, quoted a federal court judge who had never said the words, and included fake footnotes.
Deloitte later admitted that it used generative to produce the report. The firm removed errors, issued a revised report, and agreed to refund part of the A$440,000 fee. This case study shows how AI tools often generate text that may look accurate but isn’t. It also shows how easily human oversight can fall short when AI replaces humans.
In India, too, AI is replacing humans. A Bengaluru-based ad agency, The Media Ant, laid off about 40 per cent of its sales and support team and replaced them with AI agents—chatbots and a voice assistant named Neha—capable of responding to leads and handling customer queries. For a small agency, the shift to automation was not just about cost. It was also about speed and scale. The AI worked around the clock and could handle many more clients than the human team.
LimeChat, a startup that builds AI customer-service bots, is yet another case study. It claims its technology can reduce the need for support staff by up to 80 per cent for clients handling tens of thousands of queries. The bots use generative AI to write replies that mimic human tone and fluency; after such tools were introduced, workers in India’s customer-service sector have already reported being laid off. This is not a theory. It is already happening.
The impact goes beyond startups. India’s largest IT services firm, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), announced over 12,000 layoffs in August 2025, its biggest ever. The company said the cuts were related to a skills mismatch. However, industry observers noted that TCS, like others, has been investing heavily in AI to automate testing, support, code writing, and infrastructure tasks, many of which were previously handled by humans. Indeed, there was writing on the wall. In April 2024, the TCS CEO warned that call centres could become obsolete as AI systems learn to resolve problems before a human picks up the phone.
These examples show that AI will replace many roles, especially those built around patterns. Tasks like answering standard questions, writing drafts, compiling reports, and processing transactions are easy for machines to learn. They are structured and repetitive. But replacing humans with AI comes at a cost.
The Deloitte example in Australia made that clear. AI was used to draft a public policy document. But when human reviewers noticed that AI tools had fabricated quotes and references, the entire report and the company’s credibility collapsed. This is a technical failure, of course. However, it is a failure of governance, which shows that even elite organisations can misjudge and fall prey to AI hallucinations.
This lesson applies to India, too, where back-office operations have long relied on humans. A report by Reuters found that India’s call centre and support sector, which employs more than 1.5 million people, is now vulnerable to AI tools that answer queries without human help. Analysts at Jefferies estimate that India’s call-centre industry could lose up to 50 per cent of its revenues over the next five years due to automation. Call centre agents, often the first point of contact with clients, may be the first to go.
There is another risk: by using AI too early and too often, firms lose the people they need to build future leaders. If humans are not trained for senior roles, they never get the chance to make mistakes, or learn how problems are solved; they may never develop the judgment needed to lead. Instead they may become dependent on AI tools. As the former head of Amazon Web Services India said, replacing junior staff with AI is “one of the dumbest things” a firm could do because it kills long-term capability.
Trust also matters. Clients may accept that AI assists in delivery. But they still want people to explain, defend and own the results. A chatbot may answer a question. But the client wants to speak to someone if a deal goes wrong. Replacing junior staff with AI may save money in the short term. But if it erodes trust, the long-term cost for companies will be higher.
Currently, AI tools do not reflect, question or learn the same way humans do. More importantly, there are elements of tacit knowledge that can never be codified. Then, there is also the issue of errors. AI does not “know” in the human sense as it does not have the context. It predicts what sounds right based on patterns in data. That is why it can generate made-up citations or quote judges who never spoke. As Deloitte found out, AI will sometimes get things wildly wrong without human review.
The broader lesson is this: AI is powerful, but not perfect. It can assist, enhance and even replace in specific roles. But it can not replace the value of human judgment. Firms that rush to replace humans with AI may save money now. But they risk long-term damage.
AI is shaping the future of work, and the change is coming faster than we can imagine. Those who prepare for this change thoughtfully will thrive. Those who expect a plug-and-play future may be surprised that the workplace is still messy and human.
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