Aug 07: Many tech workers believe AI will take their jobs, so they think the safe move is to work in AI. But the data says the opposite. In a survey of 1,552 India-based professionals by Blind, the anonymous community app for professionals, AI/ML roles report one of the highest perceived layoff fears of any function, with 66% expecting a layoff or significant headcount cut in their team within the next 3 to 6 months.
That puts AI/ML right next to the jobs everyone already assumes are most at risk. Sales/Marketing leads at 68%, with AI/ML (66%) and Product/Design (65%) close behind. Moving into AI/ML does not make you safer. These workers feel just as at risk as the ones they thought AI would replace.
Engineering is another job people expected AI to take first, but it turned out to be one of the safest. Only 24% of engineers say a cut is “very likely,” the lowest of any function, and overall at-risk sentiment (58%) is below the survey average. Data/Analytics’ at-risk sentiment falls to 51%, and 4 in 10 of its workers call a cut unlikely, the highest of any team. The two functions AI was believed to replace feel safer than the team building it.
The split is just as sharp by company. Salesforce (81%) and Oracle (80%) sit at the top, followed by Uber (77%) and PayPal (75%). Two of India’s own SaaS firms sit at the other end, with Zoho at 9% and Freshworks at 44%. The companies where workers feel most at risk are the enterprise software and payments firms.
The fear does not come from direct layoffs. It comes from the quiet signs before them. Among workers who expect a headcount cut, hiring freezes (27%) and budget or headcount-target cuts (24%) are the strongest signals they point to. Formal layoff announcements account for just 9%.
In a Blind post on engineers’ job prospects in India, one Coinbase professional put it bluntly: “ML is honestly dead too… The best you can do is augment your current skills for backend AI pipelines. And ride it out as long as you can.” An Avalara professional went further: “the only safe ML guys are the ones with phd at deep mind.”
Methodology Blind surveyed 1,552 India-based professionals in July 2026 on perceived job security across teams and functions. Companies with fewer than 10 responses were excluded from company-level analysis. Response breakdowns are as follows:
Q1. Which team or function do you currently work in?
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Engineering (39%)
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AI / ML (25%)
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Product / Design (9%)
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Data / Analytics (6%)
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Sales / Marketing (7%)
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Operations / Support / G&A (7%)
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Other (7%)
Q2. In the next 3-6 months, how likely is a layoff or significant headcount cut in your team?(“At-risk” = “Very likely” + “Somewhat likely”)
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Very likely (29%)
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Somewhat likely (30%)
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Unlikely (17%)
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Very unlikely (12%)
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Don’t know (12%)
Q3. Which signal is the strongest driver of your read on your team’s risk? (full sample; figures cited in the release are among at-risk respondents only)
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Hiring freeze (26%)
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Budget or headcount targets cut (21%)
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Projects cancelled or deprioritized (12%)
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Rising PIP / bench policy (11%)
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Formal layoffs already announced (7%)
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No warning signals right now (24%)
Disclaimer: This article is published for informational purposes based on data and statements attributed to Blind and does not independently verify the survey findings or claims. The views, statistics and opinions presented are those of the cited source and respondents, and should not be construed as the publisher’s views.
