As AI Takes Jobs, Could It Also Create A New Generation Of Entrepreneurs?

Anyone looking for a job at the moment knows the market is tough. Companies across industries and functions have gone for AI restructuring which has meant layoffs and shrinking opportunities. Fresh graduates too are familiar with the struggle of landing a job as AI has eaten up a lot of entry-level jobs. Over the last couple of years several organisations including Facebook-owner Meta, Amazon, Oracle, and Cognizant have laid off thousands of employees. As AI advances and increasingly automates a lot of tasks, there may be a silver lining emerging, believe India Inc and global industry captains: the dawn of a new entrepreneur. One who doesn't need as many resources or staffers as before, because AI can now help execute tasks that would have required several people and several man-hours in a matter of hours or even minutes.

Ankur Nigam, Managing Partner, Dumbledore Consulting runs a bootstrapped venture and can't afford expensive consultants yet, but with AI at his disposal he was able to wriggle out of a challenge recently.

"Recently, while applying for a government tender, I realised that a feasibility report was required and the requirement popped up on the last page of document submissions. I had four hours left to apply. Initial sweating of the palms and exactly three minutes later, the penny dropped. I put in enough prompts into an AI platform and within 45 minutes, a masterful feasibility report spanning some 128 pages was the end result...with AI at my command, it was smooth sailing," Nigam told NDTV.

However, Nigam stressed on the importance of human oversight even with powerful AI models.

"Now the only question was, do I trust it blindly or review the entire document and ensure there are no loose ends. Even with a consultant written report, you wouldn't just attach it to your application and say three Hail Marys. Similar diligence is required no matter how good the output from the AI platform is."

Citadel CEO Ken Griffin recently shared that their new agentic AI system can reproduce complex finance research in two to three hours instead of the six to eight weeks it takes master's and PhD-level employees. An agentic system is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that works autonomously with little or no human intervention.

Also read: What Takes PhDs Two Months, AI Is Doing In 2 Hours: Billionaire Investor

Rajeev Rastogi, Vice President, Machine Learning at Amazon, one of the most respected names in AI in India and globally had told this writer earlier this year that a lot of the work across companies would be replaced by AI. "Today we do a lot of things in every company that are done manually. It will all be replaced by AI so it could be the same use case but also doing it with a lot less cost and with a lot less effort."

Griffin and Rastogi both agree that some jobs will get automated but AI will also spawn a new wave of entrepreneurship. "Entrepreneurs will be able to launch new businesses at breathtaking speeds. And will be able to take on incumbents in ways that you just couldn't do five, 10, 15, 20 years ago," Griffin said.

Agentic AI systems would help entrepreneurs run businesses with "just a few people" rather than teams of 30-40 people, he added. 

He is hopeful that "we're going to see a lot of these stories come to light over the next couple of years as entrepreneurs embrace this technology to really take on some very interesting opportunities to create value by meeting the needs of customers."

Could AI Give Rise To The Solo Entrepreneur?

The idea isn't as far-fetched as it may have sounded a couple of years ago.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report, a growing number of entrepreneurs are already running million-dollar businesses with little or no staff, relying heavily on AI to write code, answer customer queries, automate marketing, process refunds and handle routine operations.

One example cited in the report is Ben Broca, who runs an AI startup with no employees. According to the Journal, AI handles everything from customer support and coding to refunds, allowing him to scale the business without building a traditional team.

The report cites payments company Stripe's analysis showing that the number of solo businesses on its platform generating more than $1 million in annual revenue has doubled between 2023 and 2025. The number crossing the $10 million mark has nearly tripled over the same period.

For many founders, AI is increasingly acting like an always-on business partner rather than just another productivity tool.

That is something Ganesh Kashyap, CEO of Landis+Gyr India, believes is fundamentally changing how businesses are built.

"What we're witnessing is one of the most significant shifts in business productivity since the introduction of the internet. AI is not simply automating tasks; it is amplifying human capability," Kashyap told NDTV.

"Smaller, highly skilled teams are now achieving outcomes that previously required much larger organisations. AI is transforming every capable employee into a force multiplier. The era of success through scale alone is giving way to success through intelligent amplification."

Praveen Agrawal, Country Head at OakNorth India, sees an even bigger opportunity, particularly for India.

"AI has dramatically shortened the journey from idea to execution. For a country like India, where entrepreneurship is deeply embedded in the culture, this is a disproportionate opportunity. When starting up no longer demands a large team or a large budget, the barriers simply fall away," he told NDTV.

Serial entrepreneur and investor Dr Ritesh Malik echoed that sentiment. "The most underrated effect of AI isn't job loss. It's founder creation," he told NDTV.

"When three people can do what thirty once did, the barrier to starting a company collapses. Every capable operator inside a company suddenly becomes a viable founder."

Avinash Raghava, Founding Volunteer and CEO of AIBoomi, a community for AI builders and professionals formerly known as SaaSBoomi, believes AI is reducing the cost of execution itself rather than just making businesses more efficient.

"Every wave of entrepreneurship has had its unlock. The internet reduced distribution costs. Cloud computing lowered infrastructure costs. AI is now cutting the cost of doing the work itself," he told NDTV.

"The advantage used to go to whoever could raise money and hire people the fastest. Increasingly, it will go to whoever can think, build and iterate the fastest. That opens the door for many more people to attempt building a company."

But Will AI Really Create A Startup Boom?

Not everyone is convinced.
Brij Bhasin, Venture Partner at Rebright Partners, believes AI will certainly make entrepreneurs more productive, but questions whether it will dramatically increase the number of people willing to build companies.

"AI models and agents definitely empower individuals, especially non-technical founders, to bring ideas to life that otherwise would have been difficult," he told NDTV.

"But entrepreneurship is ultimately about having a sense of agency. That's what drives the small percentage of people who are willing to take the leap. I don't think AI coding agents suddenly change that."

According to Bhasin, building a successful company still involves much more than writing code or generating presentations.

"There is fundraising, selling, hiring, building a team and understanding customers. AI removes several bottlenecks, which means founders can move much faster. It may improve the conversion of ideas into real products and revenue. But I don't think it automatically creates a wave of entrepreneurs."

What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that it is changing the economics of starting a business. Tasks that once required teams of analysts, consultants, marketers or software engineers can now be handled by one person with the right AI tools and the expertise to use them effectively.

For some, that may mean fewer traditional jobs. For others, it could lower the barrier to becoming a founder for the first time. Whether AI ultimately creates more employment than it replaces still remains very much an open question.