Bengaluru, India’s tech hub, may face an unprecedented wave of job losses due to AI automation, a viral Reddit post has claimed. The post warns that low-salary IT employees could be laid off en masse in the coming months, triggering a ripple effect on the city’s economy — particularly on PG accommodations and small businesses that depend on tech workers.
“All the landlords around ORR who invested crores expecting long-term returns are going to be heavily disappointed,” the user wrote, predicting a dip in rental demand and even improved traffic conditions around the city.
Drawing a parallel between AI’s impact on software development and the printing press’s effect on education, the user argued that AI can now perform the tasks of entry-level software developers “with much better confidence and accuracy for a very small price.”
Beyond IT, the post suggested that automation will soon disrupt finance, operations, and accounting roles, calling it a “leading factor for the biggest downturn in the history of India.”
The post sparked intense debate. One user noted that AI-powered chatbots and robotic process automation (RPA) are already displacing BPO and call center employees. Another pointed to layoffs among software trainees, predicting “a huge correction in developer salaries” but estimating that AI won’t fully replace domain experts for at least five years.
Some saw an upside. “Traffic down ✅ Low rents ✅ Let’s bring that AI thing,” wrote one user, blaming landlords for frequent rent hikes. Another quipped, “COVID-19 couldn’t break the rental market, but AI will.”
One user argued that high rents in Bengaluru aren’t solely driven by job demand but by tenant behavior. “Rent isn’t high because of the job market… it’s high because of how people interact with it. Many bachelors and roommates split housing costs, allowing them to afford higher rents without feeling the strain individually. This gives landlords the power to charge more, knowing tenants can divide the expense. Over time, this skews the market, pushing up prices even for those who prefer to live alone. Instead of negotiating or resisting overpriced listings, people accept inflated rates because, when split, they seem manageable.”
Another user dismissed fears of AI-driven job losses, arguing that IT roles aren’t disappearing anytime soon. “I work in AI in the US, and these IT jobs aren’t going anywhere. New models are already running out of data to train on. We barely have enough new data for bigger models. Someone still has to read, review, and maintain the code AI writes, and AI is terrible at this — even with good prompts. It lacks reasoning skills, especially with larger codebases, and struggles to make small changes without breaking things. AI might boost productivity, but humans are still required at every step.”