Mumbai: Manufacturing, retail and education sectors are staring at a "seismic" shift due to agentic artificial intelligence (AI), with over 1.8 crore jobs expected to be impacted by 2030, according to a report released on Wednesday.

The manufacturing sector is projected to bear the highest impact, with 80 lakh jobs affected, followed by the retail sector with 76 lakh and the education sector with 25 lakh, as per the report by ServiceNow.

The report highlights that highly automated roles such as change managers and payroll clerks are being redefined by AI agents, which are capable of handling routine coordination tasks. Meanwhile, high-augmentation roles like implementation consultants and system administrators are increasingly collaborating with AI rather than competing with it.

Concerns about job losses due to AI have grown following an announcement by the country's largest IT services company, TCS, which plans to cut 12,000 jobs—roughly 2 per cent of its workforce—citing factors including AI adoption.

Sumeet Mathur, Managing Director of ServiceNow India Technology and Business Center, said agentic AI will create over 30 lakh new technology jobs by 2030. It is expected to reshape the workforce and redefine over 1.35 crore roles, he added.

“India has a generational opportunity to lead globally by developing AI-ready talent, redesigning workflows, and reorienting business models around continuous innovation,” Mathur said.

A survey of over 500 industry leaders conducted by the company revealed that 13.5 per cent of tech budgets are already allocated to AI adoption. Additionally, a fourth of Indian enterprises are currently in the transformation phase.

The survey also found that data security is the top concern for 30 per cent of Indian enterprises, while 26 per cent of organisations remain unclear about the future skillsets required. This, the report noted, underlines the urgent need for strategic foresight and structured, cross-functional reskilling pathways.