Two main tech giants — one in India and one other within the US — are letting individuals go, however the narratives round these layoffs appear diametrically reverse. 

When TCS CEO Okay Krithivasan addressed the corporate’s transfer to put off 12,000 workers, he blamed “ability mismatch” and “organisational shifts” from waterfall to agile. However anybody paying consideration might learn between the strains. These are AI layoffs — simply not the sort you’re allowed to say out loud in India.

Microsoft, then again, is making no effort to cover it. Layoffs are framed as half of a bigger, aggressive push into AI. The message is that redundancy is the worth of transformation. 

Microsoft principally needs Wall Road to realize it’s shifting quick and onerous on AI, even when that results in job cuts. TCS needs the Indian authorities and public to know that the corporate nonetheless values human capital, even when the spreadsheets say in any other case.

“The distinction lies within the optics—Microsoft spoke to Wall Road, TCS to its workforce and authorities. Every tailor-made their AI narrative to their stakeholders. However neither can sidestep the broader fact: AI is rewriting the principles of workforce economics,” Sanchit Vir Gogia from Greyhound Analysis, instructed AIM.

At the least Microsoft admits it. However even that’s strategic — it’s not guilt, it’s messaging. 

“CEO Satya Nadella and president Brad Smith made it clear that the corporate’s unprecedented $80+ billion in AI infrastructure funding required working effectivity—and by extension, headcount discount. This was a message tailor-made for traders, not workers,” Gogia added.

Guilt of Layoff?

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, in a memo on July 24, mentioned that the layoff of 15,000 individuals over the course of the final 12 months has been “weighing closely” on him. 

“These choices are among the many most tough now we have to make. They have an effect on individuals we’ve labored alongside, discovered from, and shared numerous moments with,” Nadella mentioned, whereas including that he’s grateful for his or her contributions to the objectively thriving market efficiency of Microsoft. 

The corporate appears prepared to commerce workforce stability for positioning itself because the chief within the AI financial system. 

Google additionally has an identical story. In keeping with a report by Monetary Specific, CEO Sundar Pichai can also be involved. He mentioned to Google workers in an inner memo amidst the TCS layoff that workers principally have to make use of extra AI instruments. 

“I believe now we have to perform extra,” Pichai mentioned. “The world is trying to Google for management and accountable innovation.” Nevertheless it doesn’t simply cease right here. 

In keeping with the report, Pichai additional highlighted that the agency must optimise inner processes and actively cut back redundancy, whereas maximising group output. Total, being extra AI-savvy. 

Although, it doesn’t straight name out for layoffs, it’s undoubtedly much like what Microsoft mentioned. And actually, the corporate has certainly laid off “tons of of workers” in 2025 alone.

Whereas the layoffs are rampant, the hope is that they’d rent extra individuals in the long run. “Each [TCS and Microsoft] are proper sizing, they are going to rent new expertise,” Mohandas Pai, former CFO of Infosys, instructed AIM. 

He added that Indian IT’s bid to maintain it mellow can also be to keep away from publicity.

Gogia additionally mirrored the identical. “This stance displays the distinctive realities of India’s employment ecosystem, the place mass layoffs entice regulatory scrutiny, union backlash, and public unease. TCS’s narrative needed to handle not simply shareholders, however workers, regulators, and shoppers—preserving its model as a socially accountable, secure employer.”

Admitting to Lose Extra?

Indian IT remains to be making an attempt to melt the blow. Not as a result of it’s nicer. However as a result of it has extra to lose by admitting the reality. Much like TCS, HCLTech CEO, C Vijayakumar additionally hinted that layoffs are doable, however didn’t straight attribute it to AI. 

“We have now had a superb quantity of individuals launched attributable to productiveness enhancements. Now, not all of them are readily redeployable as a result of the necessities for among the entry degree or decrease finish abilities are being addressed by way of automation and different components,” Vijayakumar instructed analysts throughout a post-earnings name final month.

For years, India’s IT trade has survived on a easy system of rising the variety of workers. Now, that mannequin has a competitor — precise AI. And to Indian IT’s credit score, the businesses have satisfied everybody that AI is now a part of their every day workings and are constructing tons of of AI brokers. 

However, the income from these AI investments remains to be far-off. This, and the truth that corporations are publicising AI adaptability and features, signifies in direction of doable headcount reductions. 

At TCS, for instance, over 114,000 workers at the moment are geared up with ‘higher-order AI abilities’, mentioned Milind Lakkad, the outgoing CHRO. The corporate didn’t quantify how this is able to translate to income, productiveness, or supply enhancements. 

The layoffs aren’t the story. They’re only a signal of denial. As Amit Maheshwari, CEO of Softlink World, put it throughout in a LinkedIn publish: “AI isn’t evil — it’s simply highly effective. Denial isn’t a technique — adaptation is.”

The Indian IT trade by no means invested in R&D, by no means constructed foundational instruments, and by no means imagined it might be a creator of tech as a substitute of only a low-cost executor. Now, it’s scrambling to make the restructuring appear to be a abilities difficulty moderately than an entire shift within the sport.

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