The skills that won’t be replaced by AI, according to NR Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani and Salil Parekh of Infosys

As Generative AI reshapes the workplace, Infosys’ founders, NR Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, and CEO Salil Parekh, said that core human skills, such as interactions, empathy, collaboration, and learnability, will remain indispensable.

Speaking at the 25th anniversary of Infosys’ flagship internship programme, InSTEP, they highlighted how these qualities will define success in an AI-driven future.

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Murthy, who has seen many waves of technology disruption, said the one trait that stays through this constant evolution is the ability to learn.

“The most important attribute for every successful professional is what I call learnability. Learnability is the ability to extract generic inferences from specific instances and use them in solving new unstructured problems… what is important is not so much the change in technology, it is the human beings, human relationships, and teamwork,” he said.

For Nilekani, who was also the architect of India’s digital identity programme Aadhaar, technology’s advance only heightens the value of human connection.

“Notwithstanding all the technology that is coming, human interaction, human collaboration, human relations, those will actually become even more important,” he said, arguing that empathy, teamwork, and leadership cannot be replicated by machines.

He urged professionals to go back to “first principles thinking” when solving problems, another skill AI cannot match.

Parekh, who has been at the helm of affairs at Infosys since 2018, described InSTEP as both a talent pipeline and a leadership engine. In the past five years alone, about 300 former interns have joined Infosys across client-facing and technology roles, and this number has been increasing by about 5-10 percent every year.

Parekh compared the company’s current re-skilling push in AI to the digital transformation wave a few years ago. “Everyone is becoming more AI-focused, and we will continue with that,” he said.

He added that Infosys’ early bets on data and cloud now strengthen its AI capabilities at scale.

The Many Obituaries of IT

The three leaders also brushed aside frequent doubts about the future of Indian IT.

Nilekani said that obituaries have been written every time the industry faced a major shift but said Infosys and its peers are well-positioned to turn AI into an advantage. Murthy, who first set up InSTEP to globalise Infosys’ brand, praised Infosys’ multicultural hiring efforts, while Parekh iterated that India remains unmatched in its ability to deliver technology at scale.

Across their perspectives, a common thread emerged: while AI will change the tools of the trade, the traits that matter most, i.e., the ability to learn, to adapt, and to connect with people, remain as relevant as ever.

Also, read: “Obituaries have been written many times”: Nandan Nilekani confident Indian IT and Infosys will thrive in the AI era