Gracenote, the content data business unit of Nielsen, highlighted the evolving role of Indian engineering talent in the AI era during a panel discussion aligned with the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi. Manaswi Sharma, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Gracenote, participated in a session titled “Indian Engineers in an AI World: Talent, Mobility, and Demand,” which examined how artificial intelligence is reshaping engineering roles within a rapidly transforming digital economy.
Cross-Border Collaboration and Talent Strategy
The panel was curated by the AI Knowledge Consortium in collaboration with LinkedIn, the UAE India CEPA Council, the Embassy of Germany in New Delhi, and Rishihood University.
The discussion featured senior leaders including Goda Ramkumar, VP Data Science at Swiggy; Kumaresh Pattabiraman, Head of LinkedIn India; Ramesh Raskar, Associate Professor at MIT Media Lab; and was moderated by Vivan Sharan of the AI Knowledge Consortium. The session focused on identifying institutional, educational, and cross-border strategies required to sustain India’s engineering workforce as a source of global economic strength in the AI age.
From IT Services to AI Supervision and Governance
A key theme of the discussion was whether India’s traditional IT services model—historically built on scale, cost efficiency, and process optimization—is being disrupted or fundamentally reshaped by AI-driven transformation.
Sharma emphasized Gracenote’s expertise in structuring and enriching large-scale content metadata, explaining how AI systems are redefining engineering workflows. He noted a structural shift from rule-based execution toward AI supervision, model governance, data stewardship, and responsible deployment frameworks. This transition signals a move from pure implementation toward higher-value innovation and oversight roles.
India as a Global AI Innovation Hub
Sharma also highlighted Gracenote’s globally integrated operating model, where engineering teams in India play a central role in international AI product development pipelines. Rather than functioning as back-end support, Indian teams are increasingly positioned as innovation leaders, contributing to scalable AI solutions that serve global media and entertainment clients.
The engagement reinforces Nielsen and Gracenote’s commitment to fostering AI innovation, advancing engineering talent, and contributing to industry-wide dialogue on the future of AI-powered digital ecosystems. In the broader context of the India AI Impact Summit 2026, the discussion underscored India’s transition from a services-driven IT economy to a knowledge-intensive, AI-enabled engineering powerhouse.
