Artificial intelligence is no longer a future disruptor of work. It is already reshaping jobs inside organisations, often faster than companies can redefine roles, update hiring frameworks, or prepare employees for what is expected of them.
This is one of the central findings of the Future of Work 2025 report released by Nasscom and Indeed, titled Work Reimagined: The Rise of Human and AI Collaboration. The report highlights a growing disconnect between how work is being transformed by AI internally and how those changes are reflected in job descriptions, hiring practices, and workforce policies.
Nearly 97 percent of HR leaders surveyed expect that by 2027, work will be defined by humans working alongside AI as a default mode, rather than interacting with AI occasionally. Yet many organisations are still operating with role definitions, evaluation models, and talent strategies designed for a pre-AI workplace.
Work is changing before hiring catches up
According to the report, 20 to 40 percent of work across technology organisations is already being performed using AI across functions. In software development, 45 percent of respondents said that more than 40 percent of development work is now handled by AI tools, while intelligent automation and business process management follow closely.
Despite this, the report finds that roles are evolving internally long before hiring signals reflect the change. Tasks are being redistributed between humans and machines, but job descriptions, career paths, and evaluation frameworks are often lagging behind.
“What’s changing isn’t the number of jobs, it’s what those jobs expect from people,” said Sashi Kumar, Managing Director at Indeed India, noting that roles are mutating within organisations even as external hiring frameworks remain static.
AI increases output, but raises expectations
The report underscores that AI is not operating independently. More than half of respondents reported incomplete or low-quality outputs when AI functions without human oversight. As a result, organisations are increasingly relying on humans not just to execute tasks, but to validate, contextualise, and take accountability for AI-driven outcomes.
This shift is fundamentally changing what it means to be productive at work. Employees are expected to deliver outcomes rather than outputs, apply judgment rather than follow instructions, and combine AI speed with human decision-making.
The most effective Human and AI collaboration models are emerging in higher-order activities such as system architecture, scope definition, data model design, and complex problem-solving. Meanwhile, routine and repeatable tasks such as boilerplate code generation and test creation are becoming increasingly automated.
Hiring moves from credentials to capabilities
As job content changes, hiring models are being forced to evolve. The report notes a strong shift toward skills-based hiring, with 85 percent of hiring managers reporting increased emphasis on skills and 98 percent highlighting the growing importance of hybrid and multidisciplinary capabilities.
For entry-level roles, organisations are prioritising job-ready candidates, assessed through live projects, hackathons, case-based evaluations, and portfolios rather than formal qualifications alone. At mid and senior levels, hiring decisions increasingly focus on decision-making under ambiguity, end-to-end ownership, and demonstrated impact from past work.
According to Ketaki Karnik, Head of Research at Nasscom, the real opportunity lies not just in deploying AI, but in preparing people to work effectively alongside it. She noted that skilling and capability building will be central to ensuring talent continues to move up the value chain as AI adoption deepens.
Agentic AI adds pressure to reskill
The report also highlights growing adoption of Agentic AI, with over 95 percent of respondents saying they are already using or planning to use AI agents. While more than 65 percent believe AI agents outperform humans in processing large volumes of data, this is intensifying pressure on employees to move into roles that require judgment, creativity, and accountability.
For jobseekers, the impact will be uneven. Those who can adapt to Human and AI workflows will see productivity gains and expanded scope, while others risk being trapped in shrinking task-based roles.
Organisational readiness remains uneven
Despite growing awareness, organisations face significant barriers to AI-led workforce transformation. The report cites security and privacy risks, integration with legacy systems, ethical concerns, and resistance to change as key challenges. Workforce readiness is also a concern, with around 40 percent of HR leaders highlighting gaps in AI-era skills.
In response, nearly seven in ten HR leaders are prioritising upskilling initiatives, while 79 percent see internal reskilling as their primary AI strategy. Job redesign is gaining prominence, shifting humans toward roles centred on judgment, creativity, and accountability.
A transition problem, not a displacement crisis
The report concludes that the immediate challenge posed by AI is not mass job displacement, but role clarity. Work is evolving faster than organisations can articulate what roles now require, how success is measured, and how those roles are communicated to the job market.
Until hiring frameworks, people policies, and organisational design catch up, enterprises risk talent mismatches even as AI adoption accelerates. In the emerging Human and AI workplace, the winners will be those who treat workforce transformation with the same urgency as technology adoption.
