Niels Bohr once remarked that prediction is difficult, especially about the future—a line that captures today’s debate on artificial intelligence. AI has become a global amplifier of hopes and fears, and the fear that dominates public imagination is that machines will take away human jobs. Yet the evidence, especially from the energy sector, tells a very different story.

India sits squarely inside this contradiction. Public discourse warns persistently of AI-driven unemployment, while India’s energy economy—particularly electricity—has been adding jobs at one of the fastest rates in the world. The World Energy Employment 2025 report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) presents a reality sharply at odds with the popular narrative. The global energy workforce now stands at 76 million people, growing 2.2% in 2024—almost twice the global employment rate. More than 5 million new energy jobs have been created since 2019, even as AI adoption has accelerated across industries. Electricity has become the single largest employer in the global energy system, outpacing oil, gas, and coal. And India is among the countries showing the steepest rise.

AI anxiety is rising—but so is demand for skilled work. The myth is loud; the data is louder: The belief that AI will steal jobs endures because it offers a simple storyline: machines get smarter, humans get sidelined. But the electricity sector—arguably the backbone of the modern world—offers a counter-example too substantial to ignore. Since 2019, electricity has become the fastest-growing source of energy employment worldwide. Solar........

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