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New Indian Express

Freshers safe but mid-level employees must deepen expertise in AI era, says Ascendion CEO

CHENNAI: The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will not affect fresher hiring, as they can be easily trained if they have the right mindset to adapt to new technologies, said Karthik Krishnamurthy, CEO of US-based software engineering firm Ascendion. He was speaking after unveiling the latest version of the company's AI-powered software engineering platform, AAVA, now fully agentic, capable of planning, deciding, and acting on its own to achieve goals with human supervision. However, he cautioned that mid-level professionals face greater risk. "The traditional pyramid model, with a large base of freshers, followed by mid-level staff, and a small number of senior experts, is shifting to a barbell model, where the middle layer is shrinking," he said. In the barbell structure, companies retain large numbers of freshers at one end and highly experienced experts at the other, with fewer mid-level roles. "Mid-level employees must deepen their domain expertise to stay relevant," he added, noting that Ascendion is increasing fresher intake and offering skill-gap training. He also advised students to learn how to build AI agents to boost their employability. Over 60% of Ascendion's projects have adopted the agentic AI model, mostly for clients that need to build software quickly. "It's faster, cheaper, and more efficient," Krishnamurthy said, adding that the tipping point will come when market leaders adopt the model after seeing its benefits.