India Inc shifts AI hiring to applied skills
New Delhi: India Inc is shifting focus from hiring AI builders to recruiting engineers who can apply AI to solve customer problems, improve delivery and redesign workflows. New-age roles such as forward-deployed engineers and agentic AI engineers are seeing record demand.According to a CIEL HR analysis of over 200 companies in nine sectors conducted for ET, 90% of the firms are hiring for these roles to drive customer-facing solutions and internal efficiency. The survey covered IT services, IT products, startups, global capability centres, manufacturing, retail, ecommerce , financial services and logistics. Companies are deploying these skills both for customer solutions and internal use, a trend also confirmed by HR leaders at the RPG Group, Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicles, EY and Savills India. "Today, firms are looking for people who can make AI useful, professionals who can solve customer problems, improve delivery, redesign workflows and help businesses create value," s...