Fear not, AI is a once-in-centuries opportunity, says Mukesh Ambani

Reliance Industries Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani sought to assuage fears over artificial intelligence on Wednesday, even as the debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) tools rattled technology investors worldwide. From an Indian perspective, AI is immensely advantageous, Ambani said, drawing parallels to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution that supercharged global growth.

The tycoon's comments, made at a forum with BlackRock chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) Larry Fink, came on a day the Nifty IT index plummeted nearly 6% as the launch of Anthropic’s Claude Cowork plugins sparked fears that AI agents will soon replace the human-driven, billable-hour business models behind India's tech giants. Alongside, Palantir said its Hivemind AI can now autonomously migrate data from legacy systems, work that has long been a core revenue stream for Indian IT firms.

However, Ambani termed the debut of AI a once-in-several-centuries opportunity. If India embraces the technology and empowers its youth to do the same, the country could redefine itself and carve out a true global position over 20 to 30 years, he said.

“We shouldn’t get scared of AI. It's exactly like when the Industrial Revolution came, humanity moved forward, we moved forward, productivity moved forward, we moved from 0.3% growth for many, many decades, or many centuries to 3% growth overall,” he said.

If one were to go back 200 years and claim that people would one day travel 2,000 km in a day, it would have seemed impossible, Ambani remarked. Today, with air travel, people can cover not just 2,000 km but nearly 30,000 km in a day, he said. “And I think we are just at the beginning of that age, and we must embrace it.”

According to BlackRock's Fink, the key to AI’s success in society is ensuring it broadens economic opportunity rather than narrows it. The real question is whether AI can not only disrupt but also expand economic growth across countries, he said.

While the early phase may create uneven outcomes, in the long run, AI is a major opportunity, helping companies better understand clients, manage operations, and improve efficiency, making its impact potentially very powerful, he said.

“There is an old Indian saying that a tree only attracts attention if it bears fruit,” Ambani said. He added that “In this new era, India and the tree of the Indian economy is bearing fruits with great visibility, with sustainability and abundance.”

Ambani said the startup ecosystem excites him the most, as he sees the aspiration and confidence of founders as the seeds of a hundred new Reliances.