AI revolution demands rethink in learning: Experts call for future-ready skills at Bengaluru Summit

At the Bengaluru Skill Summit, industry leaders urge students and professionals to move beyond rote learning and embrace flexible, digital, and AI-driven education models to thrive in the future workforce.

As artificial intelligence reshapes the job landscape, experts at the Bengaluru Skill Summit on Wednesday said the next generation must “unlearn old habits” and prepare for a world where machines will make most operational decisions. The event’s fireside chat, titled “From Trends to Transformation: Building Tomorrow’s Skills,” brought together policymakers and industry leaders to discuss the urgent need for education reform and workforce re-skilling.

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Atul Kumar Tiwari, former Secretary to the Government of India and Chairperson of the Board of Governors at the University of Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, emphasised that India’s states must adopt “future-first” policies that convert technological disruption into opportunity. He said that the focus should shift from traditional classroom teaching to simulation-based training and virtual labs that improve critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Tiwari also urged industries to partner more actively with educational institutions, especially in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, by expanding apprenticeship and internship programmes that bridge the gap between academia and industry. “We must blend traditional skills with modern digital capabilities to prepare students for a hybrid future,” he noted.

Offering the industry’s perspective, Jiten Chadha, Managing Director and Country Head of GlobalFoundries, said companies are abandoning long training cycles for fast, engaging formats that blend technology and collaboration. “Six-month classroom programmes are being replaced with gamified modules and short, video-based learning. Hackathons and innovation days foster creativity far better than lectures,” Chadha explained.

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Both speakers agreed that India’s future workforce must learn by doing, through flexible, AI-integrated, and experience-driven models, to remain competitive in a rapidly transforming digital economy.