Rs. 5 Lakh Crore Erosion, 5.8M IT Careers at Crossroads: EC-Council's Jay Bavisi Urges AI Workforce Shift at India AI Summit 2026

NewsVoir
New Delhi [India], February 20: The India - AI Impact Summit 2026, hosted by the Government of India under the India AI Mission at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, marked a defining global inflection point that framed the transition from AI aspiration to measurable national and enterprise outcomes. Anchored in the principles of People, Planet, and Progress, the Summit outlined a future where artificial intelligence advances humanity, enables inclusive economic expansion, and strengthens long-term sustainability.
The Summit marked a pivotal global moment in AI's evolution, drawing more than 300,000 attendees within its first three days and bringing together some of the most influential voices shaping the global AI economy, including Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Sundar Pichai of Google, Bill Gates, Sam Altman, and other technology leaders driving frontier innovation. It arrived at a moment of unprecedented reckoning for the global technology services industry, reflecting a broader shift from experimentation to measurable implementation.
Held amid heightened unprecedented reckoning for the global technology services industry. In the days leading up to the event, AI-driven disruption fears triggered a sharp selloff across major IT services firms. India's Nifty IT index plunged nearly 19 percent over eight trading sessions, wiping out approximately Rs. 4.8 to Rs. 5 lakh crore in combined market capitalisation, marking one of the steepest sectoral corrections in recent years. Top Indian IT companies suffered sharp double-digit declines, with one industry giant briefly falling below the Rs. 10 lakh crore market cap threshold for the first time since December 2020, while several others hit fresh 52-week lows. The carnage was not limited to India: overseas-listed shares of leading firms plunged nearly 10 percent in a single New York trading session, as global investors reassessed the long-term viability of the labour-intensive outsourcing model that has powered the sector for decades.
The stakes could not be higher. India's IT-BPM industry remains one of the country's most significant economic pillars , generating approximately $283 billion in revenue in FY2025, contributing over 7 percent to national GDP, and directly employing nearly 5.8 million professionals. As AI reshapes enterprise operating models worldwide, the need to reskill and realign this workforce has become a strategic priority. Leading IT companies recorded significant declines, with several stocks hitting multi-month or 52-week lows as investors reassessed the long-term implications of AI on traditional outsourcing and services models. The correction was not limited to India, as IT services companies listed overseas also experienced notable declines, reflecting broader global uncertainty around the future of labour-intensive service delivery in the AI era.
Yet within this disruption lies what may be the most consequential workforce opportunity of the decade. The same AI technologies dismantling traditional service delivery models are simultaneously creating massive new demand for professionals who can deploy, secure, and govern AI systems at enterprise scale. The question confronting India's $283 billion IT sector is not whether AI will transform its business but whether the nation can retool its 5.8 million-strong technology workforce fast enough to lead that transformation rather than be consumed by it. This is precisely the challenge that Jay Bavisi, Founder and CEO of EC-Council, addressed head-on at the Summit.
Bavisi, creator of the world-renowned Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) credential and a global leader in applied cybersecurity education - shifted the focus from experimentation to execution maturity, emphasizing that AI's future will be determined not by how fast it advances, but by how responsibly it is built, governed, and secured.
Addressing the panel "Responsible AI at Scale: Governance, Integrity & Cyber Readiness," Bavisi emphasized that as AI becomes embedded across financial systems, healthcare infrastructure, manufacturing ecosystems, digital governance platforms, and national security frameworks, disciplined workforce capability becomes the decisive factor in responsible scale.
In his broader remarks on the Summit and India's AI trajectory, Bavisi emphasized both the scale of the event and the magnitude of the opportunity.
"This is an amazing summit that has been organized in India, the AI Impact Summit. I have not seen a summit of this size. The number of people, the number of thinkers who are here from all across the world - it is a very successful event and a dialogue that is extremely important in a world that is being transformed by AI," he said.
Bavisi emphasized that artificial intelligence carries transformative potential, but only if managed with structural discipline. "AI has the potential to cause mayhem if it is not implemented properly," he stated. "When AI becomes embedded into systems, responsibility becomes critical."
He framed India's opportunity not merely as participation in AI growth, but as leadership through capability.
"India has a phenomenal opportunity to be a supplier of talent to the world. Indian professionals are known globally for their technical ability. In the world of AI right now, it is time to wake up and serve professionals to the world who are able to adopt, govern, and defend," Bavisi said.
"The fact that India is taking leadership in AI is a phenomenal step in the right direction," he added. "India is one of the very few countries with professionals who are proficient in language models, and technology at scale. This is a moment for India."
Under Bavisi's leadership, EC-Council has expanded its global AI footprint through structured, role-based capability development aligned to real-world enterprise needs. The Enterprise AI Credential Suite and the modernization of Certified CISO v4 represent the largest expansion in the organization's 25-year history, built for one clear reality: AI is scaling faster than the workforce trained to run, secure, and govern it.
Structured around EC-Council's proprietary Adopt. Defend. Govern. (ADG) framework for AI, the suite includes Artificial Intelligence Essentials (AI|E), Certified AI Program Manager (C|AIPM), Certified Offensive AI Security Professional (C|OASP), and Certified Responsible AI Governance & Ethics Professional (C|RAGE). Together with Certified CISO v4, these credentials form a unified workforce architecture designed to support AI deployment, governance oversight, security resilience, and executive leadership at enterprise scale.
The strength of that architecture was reflected in the engagement following Bavisi's session. The discussion room reached capacity, with standing-room-only attendance and sustained interaction well beyond the scheduled time. Many attendees identified themselves as CEHs, reinforcing the credential's long-standing global recognition even within a summit dominated by frontier AI technologies.
Bavisi emphasized that leadership in artificial intelligence will not be defined solely by technological speed, but by execution maturity.
"We often measure progress in numbers," Bavisi said. "But the larger impact lies in shaping professionals who go on to defend companies, governments, and communities. Workforce development is not transactional. It is generational."
About EC-Council
EC-Council is the creator of the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) program and a leader in cybersecurity education. Founded in 2001, EC-Council's mission is to provide high-quality training and certifications for cybersecurity professionals to keep organizations safe from cyber threats. EC-Council offers over 200 certifications and degrees in various cybersecurity domains, including forensics, security analysis, threat intelligence, and information security.
An ISO/IEC 17024 accredited organization, EC-Council has certified over 350,000 professionals worldwide, with clients ranging from government agencies to Fortune 100 companies. EC-Council is the gold standard in cybersecurity certification, trusted by the U.S. Department of Defense, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and leading global corporations.
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