Soumitra Dutta Sheds Light on the Subject: Is AI Going to Change the Way We Work?

Let me take you back to 1800s England, when the Luddites smashed textile machines, fearing they were a threat to skilled labour. Fast forward to 2026, and even today, it is impossible to produce certain goods without manual inputs. Another example is the introduction of ATMs in the late 1970s. The introduction of an automatic money vending machine was considered a threat to bank teller jobs. But have they vanished? No, because even today, you have cashiers at banks. Also, ATMs have a daily withdrawal limit, which again proves that technology usually comes with limitations. In the case of AI, Soumitra Dutta, Oxford Said Business School’s former dean, feels that there will be job cuts; however, these will be replaced with jobs more relevant and in sync with AI.

Soumitra Dutta Former Oxford Dean , Author & Entrepreneur

Artificial Intelligence, the BIG change

Soumitra Dutta, author of interesting books like Knowledge Processing and Applied Artificial Intelligence and Entrepreneurship and the Finance of Innovation in Emerging Markets, has a much deeper understanding of the difference between human thinking and technological advancement. In one of his interviews, Soumitra Dutta mentions, “I don’t know whether you can compete with technology, per se, but what you can try and do is help to create better lives for people, help to create better organisations and help to become more competitive in whatever we are trying to achieve in the organisation.” He further adds, “I think the challenge of any kind of digital/AI transformation... is essentially combining two things. The first part is building forward. So, all of us have a business... an organisation... [and] you have to apply technology to improve what you’re doing today.”

AI and Business: Good for owners, bad for employees?

While it is easy to say that AI will lead to job cuts, Soumitra is optimistic that there will be a change in job profiles. As business owners, people are keen to learning if AI is going to help them with cost-cutting, but for employees, the biggest fear is whether this cost-cutting means loss of existing jobs. Soumitra Dutta, an entrepreneur, clarifies, “It will certainly make transitions in jobs more acute, sometimes more frequent. But AI is a long journey. And today AI is just the next phase in the digital transformation that we all are going through. So what do I think is going to happen? There are three axes of impact or change by AI.” Soumitra continues, “One axis is you can apply AI in what we’re doing today, and get all the benefits of cost, quality, and time. To take a simple example, in finance or in banking, if you wanted to get your wealth managed professionally before, you had to have a certain wealth level to be able to afford the time of a professional banker or manager. Today all of that is handled by automated algorithms, AI-based systems, which do it much more cheaply for people with smaller volumes of wealth... That’s taking things you’re doing today and doing it better, cheaper, faster.” The second axis Dutta speaks about is “Creating backwards”. It is the harder path. “Because sometimes it means you have to come up with experiments that are disruptive, that go against the current business model...The risk management of failure, acceptance of failure becomes a very important part of creating a future. And that is something we are not very good at. That’s the challenge," says Soumitra Dutta, Oxford Dean (Fromer).

Let's face it․ Most companies are structured or cultured in a way that makes 'creating backwards' virtually impossible․ From budgets to performance reviews, it's all about predictability․

Dutta, who has been a digital transformation and AI strategist for years now, has probably seen the situation replicated across industries․

If your organization demands you show ROI before 18 months on every AI build, they've already made 'creating backwards' impossible.

'A culture that embraces failure' sounds great until you are the person presenting why last quarter's revenue didn't hit because you paid for a project that didn't work․ This is why most companies prefer to build forward․ That's rational․ That is sensible․ That is safe․ However, it's probably not enough․

Are you in favour of the advancements in AI, or are you too worried that it will soon lead to unemployment, over which people will have no control?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WE42FnJ0bg