Think AI Jobs Are Safe? 66% of India's AI Workers Fear Layoffs

For years the advice was simple - if AI is taking jobs, then learn AI. Get into AI and you will be safe. But a new survey from July 2026 has broken this myth completely. According to data from Blind, an anonymous platform where techies talk openly, 66% of AI and Machine Learning professionals in India are expecting layoffs or big team cuts in the next 3 to 6 months. This number is almost the same as Sales and Marketing (68%), which everyone thinks is most at risk. Even Product and Design is at 65%. It means - the people who are building AI are as scared as the people whose jobs AI will replace. The Big Irony - AI is Eating Its Own Creators- After ChatGPT came, thousands of engineers in India moved to AI roles thinking it will be safe for 10 years. They did courses, took GenAI certificates, and shifted from Java to Python. But now the mood is different. On Blind, a Coinbase professional wrote in a viral post - "ML is honestly dead too... The best you can do is ride it out as long as you can." This line got 2000+ upvotes because many felt the same. Who is More Scared and Who is More, Safe? - The interesting part is, fear is not the same for all roles. Engineering - Only 24% said layoff is very likely. This is the lowest. Overall, 58% engineers are in at-risk zone, which is below average. It means coders think AI will help them, not replace them. Data and Analytics - Most Confident. Only 51% feel at-risk. 40% said layoff is unlikely - the highest confidence in whole survey. Because companies need people to handle data for AI. So, the people building AI models (AI/ML roles) are more scared than the people using AI tools (Engineering, Data). Quiet Signals - How Employees Know Layoff is Coming? - No company directly says, "we will fire". Employees are reading silent signals: 27% said Hiring Freeze is the biggest signal. If company stops hiring, next is firing. 24% said Budget Cuts / Headcount Target Reduced Only 9% got direct layoff announcement. It means fear comes from what you see daily - no new joining, travel budget cut, projects put on hold. Which companies' employees are Employees Are employees are most Are Mostar most scared? Most Scared? Most scared? Among big tech firms in India- Salesforce - 81% employees expect layoffs Oracle - 80% Uber - 77% PayPal - 75% According to Blind, enterprise software and payments companies have highest fear. On other side, Indian SaaS firms (like Zoho, Fresh works) have more confidence, their employees feel more stable. Then Why Nomura Said More Hirings Than Firings- This is where the confusion starts. You read our last article - Nomura Report said AI created 83,100 jobs vs 31,900 cuts in India. Net +51,000 jobs. India was No.1 in Asia in AI hiring. So, is Blind wrong or Nomura wrong? Both are right, but they are talking about different things. Nomura talks about the total jobs in the market. Blind talks about fear inside current jobs. Nomura also said - gains are not equal. Companies do not want entry-level people now. 55% of IT companies in India have cut fresher hiring. Junior roles like QA testing, basic coding, banking back-office, customer support - these are being automated. Quess Corp report says India has 9.2 lakh AI professionals. Only 28% are in core AI roles (building models). 72% are in AI-embedded roles (using AI in their work). And demand is shifting from "AI experiment" to "AI implementation". Companies do not want people who just know theory. They want people who can deploy AI, manage it, and make money from it. Highest demand is for 3–5 years' experience people - 49.5% of all AI jobs are for them. So, Are AI Jobs Really Safe? No job is 100% safe. But this survey shows one clear thing- AI is not killing jobs; it is changing jobs. The 66% who fear layoff are those who learned AI in 2022-23 and did not update in 2026. In AI, 6 months = 3 years of normal IT. If you are still only doing prompt writing, basic model tuning, you are at risk. If you are doing deployment, LLM pipeline, model integration - you are in the safe 34%. That is why even with more hirings than firings, the fear is real. Conclusion- Think AI jobs are safer? The data says - not automatically. You have to keep learning. The people who thought "I am in AI, so I am safe" are now the most scared. The people who think "I have to learn AI every 3 months" are still safe.