Synopsis
AI is increasingly substituting entry-level hires at call centres, and even at tax preparation and investment banking firms, said Morris. Further, companies’ decision to not fill vacancies matched with slowed hiring across levels are indicators of this dramatic AI-led disruption, said the QED Investors cofounder.“The population that is doing manual repetitive tasks is going to shrink dramatically. I think we are going to see waves of layoffs occurring. I was a little nervous about the US economy even before the war that started a month ago. Unemployment is creeping up,” Morris told ET in an exclusive interview.
Morris stated that AI is increasingly substituting entry-level hires at call centres, and even at tax preparation and investment banking firms.
Further, companies’ decision to not fill vacancies matched with slowed hiring across levels are indicators of this dramatic AI-led disruption, said the QED Investors cofounder.
With the rise of AI coding assistants such as Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex, companies are also aiming at automating more complex processes such as financial modelling and research.
Commenting on where India stands in this picture, Morris said that traditional financial institutions in India are still in the process of defining their AI strategies, even as they grow more open to experimenting with advanced tools.
“The large banks were wrestling with whether AI is real or not, whether regulators will allow its use, and where regulatory sensitivities may lie,” said Morris. “The more advanced institutions are realising that this is changing so fast that trying to do it yourself, even if you are one of those large, sophisticated incumbents, means that you could fall behind.”
The company noted in a report, released last month, that AI spending in the country’s financial services sector is set to double in 2026.
QED’s Asia Pacific head Sandeep C Patil told ETtech that, in the near term, this spending will be driven by large banks, insurers, and other legacy institutions. “(This is) because they already have the scale, the data, and the incentive to automate repetitive workflows and improve risk and fraud management, and operations,” Patil said.
QED is a fintech-focused venture capital firm that entered India in 2020, and has since backed eight Indian fintech companies, including Jupiter, OneCard, Upswing and Efficient Capital Labs. The company raised $925 million across an early-stage fund and a growth fund in 2023.
ET reported earlier that the VC firm plans to invest $250–300 million in India over the next two fund cycles.
