HireHire Data Report · October 2026
The State of AI Hiring in India, 2026
We analysed 1,173 live AI, machine-learning and data-science job openings across 386 companies hiring in India — pulled directly from company career pages. The picture: AI is now roughly 1 in 15 tech openings, generative-AI roles are surging, and Bengaluru is pulling away as the country's AI capital. Here's the data.
1,173Live AI jobs
6%Are GenAI / LLM
37%In Bengaluru
6%Remote
Key findings
AI is ~1 in 15 tech openings. Of 17,346 live tech & IT jobs in India, 1,173 (6.8%) are AI, ML or data-science roles.
Generative AI is already 6% of AI hiring. 73 live roles mention GenAI, LLMs, prompt engineering or RAG — roughly 1 in 16 AI jobs, and the fastest-emerging category.
Bengaluru holds 37% of on-site AI jobs — the top three cities (Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune) account for ~63% between them.
Frontier AI labs are hiring from India. OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Scale AI all have live roles open to Indian candidates — the global AI talent race now runs through India.
IT services still lead volume, but not the future. TCS tops AI hiring with 57 roles, yet product and platform companies (Amazon, Infosys, Bosch) are competing hard for the same talent.
Only 6% of AI roles are remote — despite the "AI is remote" narrative, 94% are on-site or hybrid, clustered in the metros.
Most in-demand AI roles
Live openings by role across India:
Top AI employers in India
Where the AI jobs are
| City | On-site AI roles | Share |
|---|
| Bengaluru | 363 | 37% |
| Hyderabad | 146 | 15% |
| Pune | 104 | 11% |
| Chennai | 65 | 7% |
| Mumbai | 47 | 5% |
| Noida | 36 | 4% |
The GenAI surge
Generative-AI and LLM roles now make up 6% of all AI hiring in India — a category that barely existed two years ago. It's the clearest signal that Indian tech is moving from "AI-curious" to AI-first.
Methodology. Figures are drawn from 17,346 live tech & IT job listings aggregated from company career pages across India and refreshed regularly on HireHire. "AI jobs" = roles whose titles match AI, machine-learning, data-science, generative-AI or AI-automation patterns. Counts are point-in-time and shift as the market moves. Last updated: October 2026.