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As AI reshapes the nature of work and raises concerns about job displacement, startups and small businesses will become the key engines of employment creation, Infosys cofounder Nandan Nilekani said at the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2026 today. Nilekani said large companies, with their structured roles and processes, are better positioned to deploy AI for automation and reduce their workforce. Smaller businesses, on the other hand, have more dynamic roles that are harder to automate. “If you want to AI-proof an economy, you actually should create a situation where job creation is done by millions of small companies,” Nilekani said. He pointed to the rapid expansion of India’s startup ecosystem, saying that the country had about 10,000 startups in 2015 and around 1.5 Lakh in 2025. He expects the number to reach 10 Lakh by 2035. “Both the new startup world as well as the traditional world, they will be the employers of the future,” he said. Nilekani added that technology should make it easier for these businesses to access capital, markets, and capabilities traditionally available to larger enterprises, thereby creating a more level playing field. Tokenisation Push For SMEs Nilekani said tokenisation has reached a stage where it is moving beyond an emerging technological concept to practical applications, with the RBI and SEBI working on tokenised financial assets. While the RBI is exploring the tokenisation of certificates of deposit, the two regulators are also working together on tokenised corporate bonds, he said. Financial tokenisation involves creating a digital representation of an asset that carries information about its attributes and the rules governing it. This allows the asset and the information required to verify it to move together. Nilekani, who has been closely involved in building India’s digital public infrastructure, said tokenisation represents the next layer of this evolution. While systems such as Aadhaar and UPI made identity and payments digitally accessible at population scale, tokenisation can similarly make productive assets and economic rights identifiable, verifiable, and portable. This could allow such assets to be used across lenders, insurers, fintech platforms, and marketplaces. Nilekani highlighted three pilots being developed using the Finternet architecture, an open and interoperable digital financial infrastructure designed to connect financial systems and different classes of assets. One pilot involves tokenising cattle by capturing information such as an animal’s identity, ownership, health, and milk productivity in a digital credential. The credential can be shared with lenders, which can then provide credit against the asset. Another use case involves tokenising warehouse receipts by recording details such as the quantity and quality of the stored produce in a portable token that can be shared with lenders. The third pilot focuses on tokenising loan documents across marketplaces to make them interoperable, with smart contracts used to standardise transactions. Nilekani said all three pilots use common infrastructure designed to work across asset classes and public blockchains. AI Agents To Create Demand Nilekani said tokenised assets would also need interoperability and liquidity to become useful at scale. AI agents could help create demand for such assets by executing transactions on behalf of businesses, he added. For instance, an AI agent could convert an invoice into a token, identify potential lenders, and offer the asset to them. “Tokenisation by itself will only handle issuance. But tokenisations on public chains supported by agentic transactions will also create demand,” Nilekani said. He added that the larger opportunity lies in using tokenisation to expand smaller businesses’ access to capital and financial services. A token that establishes an asset’s identity and value, combined with an AI agent that continuously looks for financing or market opportunities, could give small businesses access to capabilities previously available mainly to large enterprises. His remarks came a day after Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said the state is working to establish India’s first state-level legal framework for the blockchain-based tokenisation of land and other immovable assets under the proposed Maharashtra Digitisation and Exchange of Land Token Asset (DELTA) Act.
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