In the last few years, a new kind of jugaad has entered our lives – one that does not require safety pins or rubber bands but prompts. Welcome to the jugaadu age of Generative AI
PROF. SUKRITI ARORA
A piece of my mother’s earring broke loose on the night of my brother’s wedding. An uncle, known in the family for his quick wit, came to the rescue. He managed to put it back together with nothing but a simple thread borrowed from the banquet receptionist. The earring survived the night, and my uncle was hailed for this ‘jugaad’.
Long before ‘hacks’ became a trending phrase across the world, Indians were quietly using jugaad for several everyday tasks – be it for fixing broken items, building crude equipment or getting the work done with “settings”. If you could come up with creative, makeshift solutions that bypassed conventional processes, you would be complimented for being ‘jugaadu’. In the last few years, a new kind of jugaad has entered our lives – one that does not require safety pins or rubber bands but prompts. Welcome to the jugaadu age of Generative AI.
By now, most of us are quite familiar with the use of GenAI tools and their sweeping impact on every industry and our everyday lives. From drafting business plans to writing assignments, from designing logos to creating one’s own caricature, tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and other large‑language models have taken over the everyday tasks of ideating and creating.
While many discussions about artificial intelligence centre on the technological impact, some focus on a deeper, perhaps psychological issue – our sense of competence – raising the question of whether AI is diminishing it, substituting for it, or enhancing it.
The meaning of competence, in its barest form, is the ability to do something efficiently or successfully. Traditionally, the route to becoming competent required time and effort – a lengthy process of learning, practicing, and perfecting. But in India, competence often looked like jugaad, the ability to somehow figure things out, quickly and efficiently.
Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu, and Simone Ahuja, in their work on frugal innovations, define jugaad as “an intuitive, improvised skill that emerges not from textbooks alone, but from on‑the‑ground experience and necessity.” This pragmatic skill and the attitude of ‘getting things done’, irrespective of procedural purity, has always been appreciated and rewarded in our society.
A cinematic example that comes to mind is of ‘Three Idiots’, where Phunsuk Wangdu (a.k.a. Rancho) creates several jugaads to tackle tricky situations and is, of course, hailed for it. This socio-cultural context is exactly where the comfort of our society with AI-assisted work finds its footing.
Surveys have shown enthusiastic adoption of AI tools by Indians. Microsoft and LinkedIn 2024 Work Trend Index showed that 92% of knowledge workers in India use AI in their workplaces, significantly more than the 75% global mark. The report further held that 91% of leaders in India believe that AI integration at the workplace has become a necessity.
Adding to it, the EY Work Reimagined Survey 2025 placed India amongst its highest rankers in their ‘AI Advantage’ score, with workers saving at least 2 hours more than their global counterparts every day using AI tools. The survey further highlighted that 86% of Indian workers believe that GenAI has a positive impact on their productivity, 82% believe that AI has improved their quality of work, and 75% believe that GenAI has enhanced their decision-making abilities.
This comfort and confidence with the use of AI is not exactly mirrored by other global figures. A study conducted by Elon University in 2025 showed a high prevalence of imposter syndrome amongst Americans using GenAI tools. Similar patterns were echoed in the research conducted by the consulting firm, Korns Ferry, highlighting that 43% employees in the middle and higher management across the globe also struggle with imposter syndrome. Questions like “Did I do this or did AI?” and “Am I really worth my job without AI?” still plague a lot of workers as traditional markers of competence continue to change.
This stark contrast emerges from the prevalent Indian attitude where practical outcome is often valued more than the authenticity of the process. With a mindset culturally supporting jugaadu efficiency, the discomfort and anxiety around AI-dependence gets easily offset for many and AI‑assisted work tends to feel less like cheating and more like smart work.
This does not imply that AI-induced imposter syndrome does not exist in India, but data has shown that the readiness to adopt AI far outweighs any feelings of fraudulence. Many, in fact, are worried about falling behind if they don’t jump on the bandwagon soon enough.
The Indian Brand Equity Foundation reflected in its study that mid-career professionals are actively seeking additional training in AI to upskill and stay relevant. Studies conducted with HRs and senior managers across organisations further showcased that an increasing number of job seekers are listing the knowledge of AI tools in their resumes, as employers, too, are preferring candidates with this skillset.
The notion of competence has, therefore, evolved from being time and effort-intensive to a type of digital jugaad that saves all of those resources and yet produces results. The argument that legitimate competence can only stem from original self-generated ideas and creations from the scratch is gradually losing its footing.
The scenario bears some similarities to previous tech revolutions that workplaces and societies have experienced – be it the industrial revolution, the digital advancements or the internet revolution – workers had to learn the new ropes and negotiate their changing roles. Each time, there was anxiety around the reworkings and a fear of losing hard-earned skills, but our present scenario is already a testament to our adaptableness.
But there are two key differentiators from then and now – the speed at which AI is sweeping the industries, and the outsourcing of thinking, a task that was previously exclusive to humans. In this light, it becomes even more imperative for people to cultivate skills like prompt engineering, critical judgement, and ethical awareness and stay ahead of the curve.
From jugaad to GenAI, our society is undergoing a massive shift in redefining what it means to be competent. In a culture where frugal solutions are lauded, and productivity has long held more value than by-the-book methods, the psychological dissonance around AI-assistance or AI-dependency remains subdued in comparison to many Western contemporaries.
Yet, the risk persists that if AI use is steered in the absence of ethical considerations, it could deride the very notion of competence it was meant to enhance. To ensure a sustainable future for Generative AI in workplaces and in life, the creators, as well as the users of this intelligence, must firmly hold onto the true purpose and values behind the work.
And here, I leave you with the question – did I write this article or just the prompt? And which answer gives you more confidence about my competence?
(The Author teaches at Apeejay Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi)