Artificial intelligence is moving rapidly from experimentation to real-world impact, and the next phase of its evolution will be shaped by abundant intelligence, human oversight and continuous skilling, according to Puneet Chandok, President of Microsoft India and South Asia.

Chandok said AI has moved well beyond hype and is already transforming businesses and public services. The key challenge ahead, he noted, is not adoption alone but scaling AI responsibly, inclusively and with clear safeguards in place.

He outlined a future where intelligence shifts from being scarce to abundant, with computing power increasingly translating into cognition for organisations. In this era of what he described as “unmetered intelligence,” AI agents will work alongside humans, handling tasks and reasoning across vast datasets, while people remain firmly in control of decision-making.

Business models, he said, will also undergo change, with value creation moving away from effort and time delays towards measurable outcomes. India’s digital public infrastructure, Chandok added, gives the country a unique advantage by enabling AI adoption at population scale across sectors.

Highlighting examples from aviation, healthcare, financial services and manufacturing, he said Indian organisations are redesigning core operations using AI, signalling a decisive shift from pilots to deployment.

This momentum, Chandok said, underpins Microsoft’s commitment to invest USD 17.5 billion in India, announced earlier this month by CEO Satya Nadella, to build cloud and AI infrastructure, skills and trust.

As jobs evolve and careers become more fluid, Chandok stressed that skilling will be the primary safeguard in the AI era. Continuous learning, he said, will be the most durable advantage in a rapidly changing workplace.