“One of the big concerns in the AI age is what happens to jobs. It’s a legitimate concern. Large companies can apply AI effectively to reduce jobs. Therefore, if you want to create an economy that’s lively and is generating jobs, it’s going to come from having millions of small companies, not a few big companies,” said Nilekani, arguing that employees at smaller companies must do different things at different times of the day that AI cannot replicate.
Arguing that such jobs in small companies are “actually safer,” than jobs in large companies, Nilekani said both the new start-up world and the traditional world will be the employers of the future. His comment was in context of the opportunities offered by small enterprises by way of tokenisation adoption and AI integration.
According to Nilekani, tokenisation levels the playing between small and big companies by providing the access to digitise locked assets for the smaller enterprises.
“In the old days, you had to have a giant company with a treasury desk, research team, credit rating, sales team. Today, a small business can have a 24x7 agent, the best analysis on the internet, a token that proves itself in the marketplace. You can sell it or get a loan against it. We believe that tokens and agents are important because it’s actually about inclusion,” he said.
He likened the notion to digital public infrastructure principles, wanting to build systems that can reach everybody.
“If you want businesses to have access,it should be able to be easy for a small business to participate as if it’s a large business,” he said.
Published on September 10, 2026