'Watch Out For The Next 5 Years:' Infosys Co-founder and Investor Kris Gopalakrishnan's Big Take On AI

At the India Impact AI Summit 2026, one of India’s most respected technology voices offered a calm but consequential assessment of artificial intelligence, stripping away the hype to focus on where AI is actually delivering value today, and where its real disruption lies ahead.

Speaking to Republic Media Network, Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Infosys, chairman of Axilor Ventures, and investor, said that while enterprises are still struggling to unlock full-scale AI-driven transformation, the return on investment is already visible, just not where most people are looking.

“It’s delivering real ROI in personal productivity,” Gopalakrishnan said.

AI’s First Payoff Is Personal, Not Organizational 

According to Gopalakrishnan, the immediate benefits of AI are occurring at the individual level, not through sweeping enterprise overhauls, but through everyday productivity tools.

“Even in enterprise, individuals work with different summarisation techniques, looking at highlights of financial spreadsheets and things like that. Many other tasks can be automated by AI,” he explained.

However, when it comes to deeper integration, AI systems plugged into backend ERP platforms or reshaping core business processes, progress is slower.

“When it comes to enterprise applications, connecting with the backend ERP systems, looking at changing their business processes, those things take time. That’s why you are not seeing immediate benefit at this point,” he said.

Drawing attention to how young the technology still is, Gopalakrishnan added, “You need to know that OpenAI came out with ChatGPT in October 2022. It’s three-and-a-half years later that we are asking this question. These things take some time. But it will happen.”

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Jobs Won’t Disappear, They Will Transform

Addressing anxieties around job losses, Gopalakrishnan rejected the idea that AI will hollow out employment, arguing instead that history shows the opposite. “You will have to retrain people because certain jobs are not needed. Today, we don’t have typewriters and typists,” he said.

He described how work itself is evolving, “Tomorrow, you don’t even use a word processor. You just speak. It will automatically translate, correct the grammar, do the editing, and format it the way you want, or by just speaking.”

To underline his point, he turned to a historical parallel. “In 1985 in India, there were strikes against the introduction of computers in banks,” Gopalakrishnan recalled. “Fast forward to 2026, the banking industry in India is probably 50 times, 100 times bigger.”

While stressing that the numbers were indicative, he added, “At that point, banking employed around 11 lakh people. Today, it probably employs 30-40 lakh people. That is what happens. The number of people employed will increase.”

India’s Population Decline Will Flip The AI Debate 

Perhaps his most striking long-term warning was demographic. “The entire world is declining in population. India will also decline in population in 20 years,” Gopalakrishnan said.

Explaining why, he pointed to falling fertility rates. “When the replacement ratio goes below 2.1, the population will decline. China is declining. Japan is declining by 25%. India will also decline in 20 years.”

In that future, he said, the AI conversation will reverse entirely. “Our question will be different 20 years hence. We will ask, can we get machines to replace people? Because we don’t have people.”

“AI at home is already here, whether we admit it or not” 

On the idea of AI and robotics entering Indian homes, Gopalakrishnan said society is already far deeper into the transition than it realises.

“We are already using a lot of tools without even realising it,” he said, pointing to smart door cameras, remote monitoring systems, and automated utilities. “All of these things are robotics or AI in some sense, because you are building intelligence into these products.”

On the question of humanoid robots and AI companions, he said, “Whether we like it or not, it’s happening.” He cited the rise of companion robots overseas and the social changes driving adoption. “We don’t have companions anymore in society. And when we don’t have them, we go to machines. Whether it’s right or not, that’s a different question. Will that change us? Yes, it will change us. But that’s the direction we are going.”

Reporting credits: Debesh Banerji 

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