As country's AI talent gap grows, investors step in to help companies hire

New Delhi: With technology evolving rapidly, companies and startups in India are struggling to find talent for emerging artificial intelligence (AI) roles, prompting investors, including venture capital firms, to support enterprises with finding tech talent.

Experts said the demand-supply gap is only getting wider for emerging tech talent. Data shared with The Economic Times by CIEL HR Services shows demand for about 50,000 AI security engineers, more than 30,000 AI evaluation engineers and over 10,000 agentic AI engineers.

Most of these positions were virtually non-existent a few years ago. Separately, TeamLease data, based on over 30,000 salary observations across technology, global capability centres (GCCs) and non-tech sectors, points to an AI talent gap of more than 53%. "For every 10 open GenAI roles, only one qualified engineer is available," according to TeamLease.

"These are not cyclical numbers. They describe a workforce that has not caught up with the work," said Neeti Sharma, chief executive officer, TeamLease Digital.

The data also shows the share of mid-to-senior AI hiring at GCCs increased to 77% in FY26 from 60% in 2023, while hiring in traditional IT roles turned negative.

According to Sharma, AI and machine learning remains the only category posting double-digit growth, at 24-27% year-on-year, while most other white-collar segments are growing in single digits, stagnating or shrinking.

CIEL chief executive Aditya Mishra said companies are increasingly seeking talent for specialised AI functions. "These roles almost did not exist a few years ago," he said.

The shortage is also leading to investors supporting startups to find tech talent.

"At IvyCap, we believe that while technology may be the foundation of a DeepTech or AI startup, people ultimately determine its success," said Vikram Gupta, founder and managing partner, IvyCap Ventures.

According to Gupta, founders often begin with strong technical expertise, but scaling requires leadership talent across product development, engineering, business development, operations and international expansion.

"As long-term investors, we work closely with portfolio companies beyond providing capital," he said.