Middle Class vs. Machine Class: Is Agentic AI Rewriting India’s Social Script?

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As Agentic AI gains hold in Indian companies, everyone wants to know: is this revolutionary technology a threat to the nation's emerging middle class? With AI agents able to execute sophisticated tasks with minimal human interference, the white-collar employment stakes are high.

Major Developments and Challenges

Agentic AI is increasingly being used in sectors such as IT, banking, BPO, and education to automate functions such as customer service, hiring, and checks for compliance.
McKinsey estimates 83 million jobs can be lost worldwide due to AI but at most 69 million new ones can be created. For India's 38-crore workforce, such a mismatch could prove disastrous.
IT and BPO entry-level jobs—historical gateways to middle-class security—are disproportionately exposed. AI agents already do code debugging, ticket fixes, and even performance appraisals.

The New Divide

A dual-layered workforce is being formed: one that controls AI systems, and another displaced by them.
Clerical and customer service employees risk losing their jobs and their identities to agent-capable orchestration.
Non-traditional applicants and Indigenous-language speakers may be disproportionately excluded by AI screening systems, perpetuating social injustices.

Policy and Ethical Failures

India lacks stringent AI regulation. There is no binding transparency, bias audit, or explainability of AI-driven decisions.
Without safeguards, AI could exacerbate unemployment, mental health crises, and online disempowerment.
The Way Ahead
Experts advocate a people-centric approach: mass-scale reskilling, enforceable AI audits, and green computing standards.
India must have laws in place to contest automatic decisions and ensure algorithmic accountability.

Sources: The Wire, Financial Express, Analytics India Magazine, The AIDEM, BusinessWorld.