Artificial intelligence is reshaping Ahmedabad’s information-technology sector, but the scale of its employment impact remains unclear because the estimates circulating about jobs at risk are not linked to a named study or official dataset. A report published by Sandesh said as many as 45,000 IT jobs could be vulnerable, affecting between 1.25 lakh and 1.50 lakh professionals across approximately 3,700 firms in the city.
The report presents Ahmedabad’s technology workforce as an early test of how generative AI could alter employment in an urban economy. Its most immediate concern is the decline in junior-level hiring. According to the report, companies are increasingly using AI tools to produce websites and coding outputs in minutes, reducing the amount of entry-level work previously assigned to web developers and junior programmers.
That shift matters because junior roles are the usual entry point into the technology labour market. Freshers and early-career workers typically acquire experience by performing coding, testing, documentation and website-development tasks under supervision. If those tasks are automated or absorbed by smaller teams, the change can affect not only existing employees but also the pipeline through which new workers enter the sector.
Sandesh reported that Ahmedabad has about 3,700 IT firms and between 1.25 lakh and 1.50 lakh IT professionals. The report did not identify the source or methodology behind these figures, and it did not specify whether the firms include software companies, information-technology services providers, start-ups, digital agencies or other technology businesses. That distinction is important because AI adoption and employment exposure can vary substantially across business models.
The report also cited an estimate that up to 30% of IT employees could face job risk in the coming period. It did not define the period, explain whether “job risk” means redundancy, reduced hiring, lower wages, altered job roles or slower career progression, or identify the institution or experts responsible for the estimate. These gaps prevent the figure from being treated as an established forecast.
A separate comparison in the report illustrates the direction of the change. It said that a company which previously used a 300-person team for a project could now operate with 200 employees after adopting AI-supported methods. However, the report did not name the company, identify the project, describe the technology used or provide employment records to substantiate the comparison. It should therefore be understood as an example presented in the report, not as independently verified evidence of a sector-wide ratio.
The strongest evidence available in the supplied material concerns a reported change in hiring behaviour rather than confirmed job losses. Sandesh said junior-level recruitment has declined and that new coders and freshers are finding it harder to locate opportunities. That distinction is central. A reduction in new hiring can precede layoffs, but it can also reflect changes in demand, project cycles, business conditions or the reorganisation of work. The report does not establish which of these factors is dominant in Ahmedabad.
The city’s exposure reflects the structure of technology work. Software development contains tasks that can be partially automated, especially where projects involve routine coding, website creation or repetitive technical processes. At the same time, the available report does not show how much of Ahmedabad’s IT activity is concentrated in these tasks, how many workers have moved into AI-assisted roles or whether firms are creating new positions in areas such as system integration, quality assurance, data governance and client management.
This uncertainty also complicates the question of productivity. The report says AI has improved company efficiency while reducing the number of employees required for some projects. Efficiency gains can allow firms to deliver more work with fewer people, but the employment outcome depends on whether the additional demand created by lower costs is large enough to generate new roles. No information in the supplied material establishes whether Ahmedabad’s firms are expanding their project volumes, entering new markets or retaining the savings as lower labour requirements.
For workers, the transition appears to be creating an uneven labour-market pressure. Experienced professionals may be able to use AI tools to increase output or move towards higher-value work, while junior employees may lose access to the routine assignments through which they traditionally build skills. The report’s warning about freshers is therefore not simply a question of whether existing jobs disappear. It is also about whether the city’s technology sector can continue to provide a credible first rung on the employment ladder.
The report quoted experts as saying that professionals should not respond to AI only with fear and should instead update their skills. It argued that workers who adapt to the technology could find new employment opportunities. No names, organisations or specific training programmes were provided, however. The recommendation remains broad, and the material does not establish which skills employers in Ahmedabad are currently seeking or whether training providers can meet that demand.
That institutional gap is significant for an urban employment system. Responsibility for responding to technological change is distributed among employers, educational institutions, skills agencies and workers. Companies decide how quickly to automate and whether to retrain existing staff. Colleges and training providers influence the skills entering the market. Public agencies may track employment, support reskilling or coordinate industry programmes. The supplied report does not identify any such programme or indicate that a formal city-level response has been announced.
The numbers cited in the report also require a stronger evidence base before they can support policy decisions. A credible assessment would need to clarify the size and composition of Ahmedabad’s IT workforce, the number of firms actively using AI, changes in junior hiring over time, staff reductions linked specifically to automation and the creation of new AI-related roles. It would also need to distinguish between jobs eliminated, jobs redesigned and jobs that are merely exposed to future change.
Without that information, the headline figure of 45,000 jobs at risk can draw attention to a real structural question but cannot by itself measure the scale of disruption. The same applies to the reported 30% estimate. It may refer to tasks rather than entire occupations, or to potential exposure rather than confirmed losses. Treating those categories as interchangeable would overstate what the available evidence shows.
Ahmedabad’s technology economy is therefore facing a transition whose direction is clearer than its measured consequences. AI is being used to change how some firms produce software and websites, and the report indicates that junior hiring has weakened. What remains unestablished is how widespread the change is, how many workers have already been displaced and whether new roles will compensate for the reduction in routine entry-level work.
The next step for understanding the issue is verification of the employment estimates, the firms covered, the time period used and the identity of the experts or institutions behind the projections. Until those details are supplied, the reported figures should be treated as claims requiring confirmation, while the broader warning about pressure on junior technology jobs merits closer examination.
