Taimoor

Pakistan’s ruling elite must read the warning signs before it is too late. Yesterday, a friend told me he had shut down his Pakistan back-office operation and laid off 40+ employees in just two months. Why? AI can now do much of the work that previously required an entire team. This should alarm us. Pakistan has 3M+ people involved in freelancing and digital work, generating around $1.7B annually. Add hundreds of thousands working in BPO, call centers, accounting, data entry, customer support, design and other outsourced services. Many of these jobs are directly exposed to AI disruption. Then today I read the World Bank’s latest poverty assessment, and the picture becomes even more concerning. Pakistan is already dealing with rising poverty, millions of young people needing jobs, one of the world’s largest out-of-school populations, a serious brain drain, weak investment and growing regional deprivation. Now imagine AI eliminating a significant share of the very jobs that became an economic lifeline for educated Pakistani youth. Where is our Plan B? We cannot build an economy indefinitely around IMF programs, borrowing, exporting our skilled people and celebrating the remittances they send back. AI is not the enemy. Being unprepared for it is. Pakistan needs investment, new industries and an urgent transition toward higher-value skills and AI-driven productivity. But before any of that can succeed, Pakistan needs political stability, a functional democracy, functioning institutions, rule of law and, above all, an independent judiciary. These warning signs are no longer separate. Poverty, unemployment, brain drain, insecurity, political instability and technological disruption are beginning to converge. Pakistan does not have another decade to waste. We were supposed to start fixing these problems yesterday.