New Delhi — Quiet Quitting Spreads in India as AI Use Expands

Quiet quitting — the practice of doing only the minimum a job requires — is showing up in Indian offices, and Deccan Herald reported that broader use of artificial intelligence tools is likely to make the pattern more common, not less, as automation reshapes daily duties in white-collar work, according to the outlet's report, "Quiet quitting comes to India. AI will make it worse." The outlet frames the pairing of the two trends as a workplace risk to watch over the coming year rather than a settled outcome.

What is driving quiet quitting in India right now?

Deccan Herald's report ties the shift to a broader mismatch between what companies ask of employees and what employees are willing to give beyond formal job descriptions. The outlet's framing does not attach the trend to a single industry or company; it presents quiet quitting as a workplace-culture pattern that is arriving in India after gaining attention in other labor markets.

How could AI adoption make disengagement worse?

The core warning in Deccan Herald's headline is that AI tools will "make it worse," meaning the outlet expects automation to intensify quiet quitting rather than solve it. The reasoning implied by that framing is straightforward: when software takes over routine tasks, employees who already feel disconnected from their roles have less reason to invest extra effort in the remaining work. Deccan Herald does not attach a figure to how many workers or firms are affected, and no such number appears in the available reporting.

What does research on AI's role in the workplace add to the picture?

A separate HTT News report on the emotional dynamics of AI in the workplace points to friction between employees and AI systems as a live issue for organizations, reinforcing the general direction of Deccan Herald's warning: AI's arrival in day-to-day work is producing emotional and motivational strain, not just efficiency gains. Neither source quantifies the scale of that strain with a specific rate or dollar figure, and none is used here.

What should employers and workers watch next?

The open question, per both reports, is whether companies respond to AI-driven disengagement by redesigning roles to keep employees invested, or by treating quiet quitting as a performance problem to be managed after the fact. Some employees already lean on personal productivity and focus tools — apps like the mindfulAI Keyboard are marketed for exactly this kind of workday friction — but neither source treats consumer software as a fix for the structural issue they describe. Watch for whether Indian employers publish their own engagement data in response to the Deccan Herald report, since no company-level figures have been disclosed so far.