Given the talent shortage in this sector, salaries for AI-related roles start at Rs 5-6 million for mid-level roles and go up to Rs 1.2-1.5 million for senior roles (excluding restricted stock units for senior roles).
According to an ET report, growing awareness of AI's potential to transform businesses and provide competitive advantage has led to a surge in demand for AI professionals. Job search platforms and headhunters such as foundit, ABC Consultants, and Michael Page are reporting a significant rise in hiring of AI talent. The trend is driven by both small and medium boutique companies and global capability centers of multinational corporations. Companies such as Amazon, EY GDS Consulting, HP, Ola, and Intel are actively searching for AI talent, according to recruiters and job sites. In India, around 416,000 people work in the field of AI and data science, with a demand for another 213,000 professionals, according to estimates by IT industry body Nasscom.
Ratna Gupta, Senior Partner, ABC Consultants, stressed the need for strategic guidance and leadership to ensure ethical use of AI and drive impactful initiatives aligned with business objectives. She said India has seen a 22-25% increase in hiring requirements for senior AI talent.
Pranshu Upadhyay, regional director, Michael Page India, outlined the responsibilities of an AI professional, including innovating with AI and large-scale language models, driving AI strategy, identifying potential AI use cases and keeping up to date with the latest developments in computer vision, natural language processing, recommendation systems and neural networks. Upadhyay also said there has been a 60% year-on-year increase in hiring of mid- to senior-level AI talent. Due to a shortage of experienced professionals, companies are often hiring Indians who have returned from AI-driven roles in developed countries such as the US, he added.
Recruiting platform foundit has reported a 12% increase in demand for senior-level AI roles, with the highest demand in IT, retail, automotive, telecom, healthcare and BFSI. Demand for AI talent is expected to increase in the coming years, according to Sekhar Garisa, CEO, foundit India.
Several companies are aggressively ramping up their AI talent. Hitachi recently appointed its first chief AI transformation officer to drive company-wide transformation through generative AI. Accenture is focusing on four key areas of expanding its AI talent, including value strategists, infrastructure and technology architects, AI/ML computational scientists, and modern data architects and engineers. Semiconductor company AMD is also hiring AI experts who can think at a systems level and advance AI and machine learning in hardware and software development.
Read from ET | AI adoption on the rise
K. Sudarshan, managing director of executive search firm EMA Partners India, predicts demand for AI talent will rise as more industries start hiring. He believes salaries in the field will soar further as demand rises. Ashutosh Khanna, co-founder of Walkwater Talent Advisors, emphasized that professionals with experience building algorithms, creating products at scale, and knowledge of data security and ethics in AI will have an advantage in the job market.
