• Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu says AI is unlikely to cause mass unemployment but could deepen inequality.
• He warns the real danger is tech monopolies hoarding automation gains, not job destruction.
• Vembu urged policymakers in a detailed post on X to focus on fair economic distribution.
• He suggested human-centric roles like caregiving and farming may be more resilient to automation.
What Sridhar Vembu said
In a detailed post on X, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu argued that artificial intelligence is unlikely to trigger mass job losses. Instead, he said, the bigger risk is that the economic gains from automation could be captured by a small number of powerful tech firms — a shift that would deepen inequality and hurt the middle class if governments do not intervene.
Why this matters
The distinction Vembu draws matters because it reframes the public debate from a simple jobs-versus-machines narrative to one about who captures value. Automation that increases productivity does not automatically translate to broad prosperity. If the profits and efficiencies created by AI are concentrated inside a few dominant companies, the wider workforce and middle-income households may see fewer benefits — or even economic displacement.
Who is most at risk
Vembu pointed to monopolistic tendencies in tech as the primary danger. When a small number of firms control critical AI infrastructure, platforms, or data, they can extract outsized economic returns. That concentration, he warned, could leave the middle class particularly exposed, not because their jobs are instantly eliminated, but because they fail to receive a fair share of productivity gains.
Which jobs might hold up
According to Vembu, roles that remain inherently human — those requiring empathy, physical presence, or deep local knowledge — are likelier to retain value in an automated economy. He cited caregiving and farming as examples of occupations that depend on human attributes and community ties, and may therefore be more resilient to blanket automation.
What Vembu wants from policymakers
Vembu urged policymakers to prioritize fair economic distribution as automation advances. He emphasised that technological progress alone will not guarantee shared prosperity; deliberate public policy is required to ensure that gains from AI are widely distributed rather than concentrated. He did not prescribe specific measures in the post, but framed the issue as one of economic governance and distribution.
What to watch next
The conversation Vembu raised highlights two threads to follow: how leading tech firms structure access to AI tools and data, and how governments respond to distributional risks. Observers should watch for policy moves related to competition, data governance, taxation and worker support — and for industry behaviours that either widen or narrow access to automation benefits.
Vembu’s intervention steers the debate away from panic about immediate mass unemployment and toward longer-term questions about power, fairness and the rules that shape who benefits from automation.
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