The risk is getting ever more real.” In a post on X, Vembu wrote, “Any job performed on the computer has this risk now: one smart person using AI can perform the work of 10 people.
In a blunt warning about the future of computer-based jobs, Zoho co-founder and Chief Scientist Sridhar Vembu has said that artificial intelligence has reached a point where one smart person using AI can do the work of ten.
The move is being seen as a way to cut costs and free up funds for its massive AI push. This is not the first cut this year. He, however, clarified that this does not mean that 90 per cent of people working on computers will be left with no work. Just this week, Microsoft announced a voluntary exit offer for up to 60,000 employees across the US, Canada, the UK and India, which is about 27 per cent of its global workforce of 223,000. Microsoft is planning a capital expenditure of $175 billion this year for AI infrastructure. The company had earlier offered a voluntary retirement programme to more than 8,700 employees in July, and then fired another 4,800 employees a few weeks later. Microsoft is not alone; companies including Amazon, Meta and Oracle have also trimmed their workforce in 2026 even as profits have grown, with AI allowing them to do more with fewer employees.
“What it does mean is a rebalancing across the economy, and that is painful when we go through it.
“This does not mean 90% of people working on a computer will have no work at all,” he said, adding that industries that could not afford software engineers or digital marketers earlier could afford them now as the cost of such services falls. What lies ahead is not mass unemployment, but a painful rebalancing of the economy, according to Vembu. The only thing we can do is to accept that it is coming and be prepared for it,” he said in his post.
Vembu’s comments come at a time when the impact of AI on jobs is already visible across big tech.
