By Achal Khanna
There was a time when workplace decisions were messy, human and often subjective. A manager’s judgement, a team lead’s instinct, sometimes even a corridor conversation could shape who got hired, promoted, coached or let go. That world hasn’t disappeared completely, but it is quietly changing. Today, in many Indian organisations, the first opinion no longer comes from a person. It comes from a system.
Artificial intelligence has moved far beyond automation. In hiring, performance reviews, workforce planning and even engagement tracking, technology is no longer just supporting decisions; it is influencing them. Sometimes heavily. Sometimes invisibly. And for employees across India, this shift is being felt in small, everyday ways rather than dramatic announcements.
Recruitment is often where people notice it first. Resumes are screened before human eyes ever see them. Certain profiles are prioritised, others quietly filtered out. The logic is efficiency, scale, speed, all necessary in a country where organisations hire at volume. But it also means that first impressions are increasingly mathematical, not conversational. The interview still happens, but the shortlist is already shaped.
Performance management is changing, too. Work is being measured constantly now, including output patterns, timelines, consistency, and even collaboration indicators. Dashboards replace long conversations. Scores appear at the end of a cycle, and those numbers travel far. They influence increments, role changes, and sometimes reputations. For employees, this can feel like being evaluated by something that doesn’t know context. For organisations, it feels like clarity.
Neither side is entirely wrong.
India’s workplaces are adopting AI at a moment when work itself is under pressure. Hybrid models, distributed teams, productivity concerns, skill shortages, and leaders are being asked to make faster decisions with less visibility. Technology fills that gap. It offers patterns where humans see noise. It flags risks early. It brings consistency where bias once lived.
But consistency can also flatten nuance.
One of the questions that keeps coming up in HR circles is not whether AI is useful, but whether it is becoming too authoritative. When an algorithm flags someone as disengaged, what happens next? Is it a starting point for conversation, or a quiet label that follows the employee? When performance scores are generated, do managers feel empowered to challenge them, or do they defer to the system because “the data says so”?
This is where the idea of AI as a “new boss” becomes uncomfortable. Not because technology is malicious, but because it lacks lived experience. It does not understand grief, caregiving, burnout, or the invisible labour that keeps teams together. It sees patterns, not people.
The Disappearing Middle Manager and Cultural Shifts
AI integration is causing a structural flattening of the Indian corporate hierarchy. As AI tools provide seamless coordination and dashboard tracking, the need for layers of middle management is diminishing. Roles focused primarily on administrative coordination are being eliminated as they no longer add sufficient value in an AI-augmented environment.
This disruption is particularly visible in India’s leading IT firms, where a new cultural friction has emerged: the need for managers and employees to align human intuition with algorithmic directives. Companies are realising that management layers built over decades were often about scale rather than impact. As these layers “disappear,” the activities they previously handled, mentoring, knowledge transfer, and culture-building, face significant disruption.
Addressing Bias and Societal Inequities
As AI takes on managerial responsibilities, it inevitably risks inheriting and amplifying existing societal inequities. Algorithmic bias in the Indian context is uniquely complex, rooted in historical injustices related to caste, religion, gender, and socio-economic status.
Large Language Models (LLMs) and recruitment algorithms can display a higher propensity for stereotypical outputs in India compared to Western contexts.
Furthermore, for a workforce where English proficiency is a significant social and economic marker, the “new boss” also exercises linguistic authority, potentially penalising talented individuals based on dialect or phrasing rather than capability.
At the same time, pretending AI should be switched off is unrealistic. Indian organisations operate at a scale that demands digital decision-making. The answer lies in how leadership frames the role of technology. AI works best as a second opinion, not a final verdict. As an input, not an authority.
This requires effort. Leaders must stay involved. Managers must remain accountable. Employees must be told what is being measured and why. Transparency is no longer optional when systems are shaping careers.
There is also a skills dimension to this shift. As AI influences decisions, employees are adapting how they work. They learn to document better, communicate more visibly, and align outputs with what gets measured. This isn’t manipulation; it’s survival in a system where visibility matters differently than before.
India is not alone in this transition, but its scale makes the impact sharper. Millions of careers will be shaped, directly or indirectly, by algorithmic judgment. That makes responsibility non-negotiable.
The future of work in India will not be human versus machine. It will be human with machines. But that partnership only works if organisations remember who carries accountability. Technology can guide. It cannot replace judgment.
AI may now sit at the decision table. But leadership still decides how much power it holds.
(The author is the CEO of SHRM India, APAC & MENA)
Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs, and views expressed by the various authors and forum participants on this website are personal and do not reflect the opinions, beliefs, and views of ABP Network Pvt. Ltd.
