Upskill and reskill to grab opportunities AI offers: Hitesh Oberoi
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AI reflects a technology shift, and unless you recognise and adapt, you will be left behind, said Hitesh Oberoi, Managing Director and CEO, Info Edge, the parent firm of Naukri, Jeevansathi, Shiksha and 99acres while delivering the keynote address at the sixth edition of Techspectations, Manoramaonline's marquee digital summit at Kochi on Friday.
According to Oberoi, not investing enough, not hiring the right talent and not being able to build a data-driven culture of innovation could pose challenges. "Whenever there is a technology shift, you have to recognise it and adapt. If you don't do it, you are in danger of being left behind. New technologies are not understood by people at the top. You have to bring new talent, empower them and let them do what they know best. Technology is something you grow up with but whatever technology that emerges after you turn 35, you forget. It is best understood by people who are still in college, so you have to be able to get them in," he said.
While acknowledging apprehensions on AI posing a potential threat to certain job market segments, he said that AI will bring down the cost and create many opportunities. "To grab these opportunities, people will have to upskill and reskill. AI will become as basic a skill as reading. People will become more productive," he said.
Matchmaking has become faster and job recruitment easier with the infusion of Artificial Intelligence, especially with Agentic AI, he said. Hitesh explained how changing the algorithm with machine learning algorithms increased acceptance (matchmaking) by 40 per cent on Jeevansathi, a matrimonial website. "It was done using the same data and the acceptance increased by 40 per cent, it means there was an increase in marriages by 40 percent," he said.
He deliberated on the use of Agentic AI on how it does jobs and makes decisions. "We have around 120,000 companies on Naukri. The usual practice was that recruiters log into our database, shortlist candidates, message them, and if one responds, shortlisting is done and goes on till the interview. This process can take 2-3 weeks. With Agentic AI, the database search is done using AI, the first-level assessment is done using AI, and practically what used to take 10 days is done in 10 hours. So recruiters can focus their energy on reaching out to more candidates or building brands," he said deliberating on use of AI tools at Info Edge.
"This may not be always possible for high-end jobs, but certainly it can be done for routine jobs. We are building our own products, HR recruiter agent, customer service agent and so on," he added. Oberoi narrated a story to depict how Agentic AI is becoming a reality and how for the first time there is a technology which can take decisions.
"You have these captchas on the website; an AI agent was tasked to break a captcha. When it was not able to do so, what it did was it went to another website and hired a human to do the job. When the man felt doubtful and asked why it wanted him to do that task, it replied that it was an old man who can't use the fingers. It shows how AI can evolve. It is not just technology, it is intelligence, it can take decisions for you," he said.
Oberoi spoke at length about new AI-driven features at Info Edge. "The physical resume writing service on Naukri used to take at least two weeks. The first draft is sent to us, we ask questions, and the turnaround time will be long. Now the first draft is produced by AI. We have 10 lakh users monthly in interview preparation and 15 lakh users in cover letter generation. For a long time, we have got requests from companies to assess communication skills of our candidates. We now have that. On Shiksha, our educational counselling and research platform, the satisfaction level of the chatbot was 40%; with the use of AI, the satisfaction level is 85%," he said.
He recalled how he took a course in AI at IIT years back. "I found it interesting then, but I wondered where I could use it. We have been using AI at Info Edge for the past 14 years. We had around 20 people 6 years ago, today, we have 100 people as AI Machine learning engineers and data scientists. The headcount has gone by 400%. There has been massive advances in computing and trained AI professionals have emerged. We need three things to be successful in AI; computing, talent and data science," he said.
Earlier, Mariam Mammen Mathew, CEO of Manoramaonline, said in her welcome address that AI is already assisting students with homework, helping people learn new languages, generating speeches and Excel formulas, and AI is set to reshape every facet of our lives in the years ahead.
Tom Joseph, Director, New Initiatives, JAIN Deemed-to-be-University, said that there is a need to democratise AI, to make it more localised and efficient.