India's GCCs Transform Into AI Innovation Hubs as Internal Upskilling Drives Agentic AI Adoption

AI-Driven GCCs' Race Gets Dense as Indian Firms Follow IBM | AIM

A key component of enabling AI-powered GCCs is talent upskilling. Global capability centres are now under pressure to enhance operational efficiency, unlock data value, and deliver personalised, omnichannel experiences. This results in a growing number of GCC mandates now coming with a built-in digital and AI-first agenda. In fact, industry analysts report that over 60% of new GCC mandates in 2024 include a digital and AI-first charter, reflecting the shift from service delivery to strategic value creation. At the backdrop of such AI led innovations in India, Infosys recently unveiled its AI-first GCC model, a specialised offering designed to transform GCCs into AI-driven hubs for innovation and business growth. The model leverages Infosys' experience with over 100 GCC engagements, including setups for Lufthansa Systems, zooplus, and Dan

India's GCCs turn key testing ground for agentic AI ideas

India's global capability centres (GCCs) are rapidly adopting agentic AI, shifting from cost-focused hubs to innovation and product engineering centres. Investments in AI, talent upskilling, and automation are driving live deployments in various sectors. As a result, attrition has dropped and remains at 9-13%. Long-term innovation mandates and internal mobility pathways have further improved retention in AI and digital roles. The global capability centres (GCCs) in India are becoming a frontline testing ground for agentic artificial intelligence (AI), powered by a sharp increases in investment, deeper innovation mandates and a restructuring of operating models. The EY GCC Pulse Survey 2025 shows that 58% of the GCCs are investing in agentic AI and 83% are expanding generative AI(GenAI) programmes, marking one of the fastest adoption cycles across global enterprise hubs. A large part of this shift is talent-driven. "GCCs are no longer seen as a cost arbitrage for their global HQs. They are taking end-to-end ownership of global processes, product engineering, R&D, data/AI work and innovation," said Neeti Sharma, CEO of TeamLease Digital. She pointed to 18-22% annual growth in AI, cloud and cybersecurity roles, as well as a higher premium for specialised talent. "When GCCs hire for niche skills, they pay almost 25-30% higher wages compared to the tech sector," As a result, attrition has dropped and remains at 9-13%. Long-term innovation mandates and internal mobility pathways have further improved retention in AI and digital roles. A broader strategic shift reflects this talent push. "GCCs are no longer treating India as just a support or cost-efficiency hub. Hiring and investment patterns in 2025 show a clear shift toward product engineering, AI builds, platform development and innovation mandates," highlighted Roop Kaistha, regional managing director, AMS APAC. New R&D driven GCCs, including Vanguard's Hyderabad centre focused on engineering and AI, highlight the move from cost-driven operations to capability-led strategies. BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), retail, technology, healthcare and manufacturing are all experiencing a sharp increase in demand for agentic AI talent. The demand for MLOps engineers (specialists who manage AI model deployment), AI workflow designers, LLM orchestrators (professionals who coordinate large language models), AI product owners, and governance specialists is being driven by these industries. The GCC talent pyramid is changing due to the emergence of hybrid roles, which combine engineering fluency, domain judgment and experimentation. Upskilled internal talent is expected to fill nearly 27% of future digital roles, reflecting the shift from execution to innovation. Operationally, GCCs are entering a new phase in automation maturity. "The first wave of fully autonomous, agent-driven execution will emerge in areas where the rules are clear, the volumes are high, and the business impact is immediate," said Jaspreet Singh, partner, GT Bharat, pointing to this emerging trend. Early-stage agentic execution can already be seen in supply chain management, finance close, collections, procurement, HR onboarding, and customer service handling. One ongoing pilot, for instance, now generates financial forecast reports overnight, a task that previously took several days of manual labour. Workforce structures are evolving accordingly. "Team structures are becoming leaner... 'agent supervisors' and 'exception managers' are emerging in place of large execution teams," said Singh, indicating a shift toward outcome-based composition and autonomous decision-making with guardrails and audit frameworks. This operational transformation is already moving beyond experimentation in some centres. While most India-based GCCs are still running pilot projects, some have begun deploying agentic AI in live workflows, particularly in customer service and finance operations. "Agentic AI in GCCs is still in its nascent stage, but some are now deploying agents in live workflows, particularly in customer service management and finance operations," said Arindam Sen, partner and leader of the GCC sector at EY India. India's role as a global design and prototyping hub continues to grow as more innovation mandates shift closer to the talent base. However, capability gaps still exist. Although Xpheno reports steady growth of 5-7% in AI talent, it highlights the lack of specialised positions like senior AI architects, agent developers and governance specialists, capabilities that determine how quickly GCCs can scale enterprise-grade agentic systems. Altogether, India's GCC ecosystem is evolving into the world's preferred environment for building, testing and scaling agentic AI. As this transformation accelerates through 2025, GCCs are positioning themselves not just as execution centres but as strategic innovation hubs that will shape how enterprises worldwide deploy autonomous AI systems, marking a structural shift in India's global relevance.

GCCs step up AI upskilling to meet tight adoption deadlines

According to consultancy ANSR, more than 70% of GCCs in India are now in charge of their company's global AI mandate, which includes model development, platform engineering, fraud analytics, cybersecurity, and integrating AI into various processes and products. India's Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are increasingly training their own employees in AI instead of hiring talent from outside, as companies struggle with limited supply of specialists, fast-changing skill needs, and accelerated AI adoption timelines. The change is substantial and happening quickly, according to data from workforce intelligence firms. Internal mobility now fills about 27% of future-tech and AI roles within GCCs according to TeamLease Digital. "Most large-scale GCCs that expanded significantly over the past few years are now focusing on transforming processes and building internal AI capacity," said Neeti Sharma, CEO, TeamLease Digital. Another data source, Bharatiya Converge, shows a similar trend. Internal redeployment into AI/ML roles in mature GCCs has risen from roughly 15% last year to 30-45% this year, fuelled by structured capability-building programmes rather than ad-hoc learning. One reason for the shift is the rapid evolution of skill requirements. "By 2027, nearly 40% of current tech skills will be partially obsolete, not due to job loss, but because of skill fusion and the adoption of AI-aligned skills," said Roop Kaistha, regional managing director, APAC, AMS. He pointed out that GCCs are responding by creating multidisciplinary, AI-aligned positions internally because existing engineers are often more qualified for hybrid skill requirements than lateral hires. The expanding scope of mandates now anchored in India is another factor contributing to the change. According to consultancy ANSR, more than 70% of GCCs in India are now in charge of their company's global AI mandate, which includes model development, platform engineering, fraud analytics, cybersecurity, and integrating AI into various processes and products. "Instead of competing in a crowded lateral market, GCCs are finding that structured internal development pipelines deliver talent faster, at lower cost, and with far better enterprise context," ANSR said. These initiatives have been formalised by large employers. To prepare existing employees for AI-heavy roles, several GCCs have rolled out internal academies, role-based skill stacks, and AI proficiency pathways. For instance, TechMahindra trained tens of thousands of workers in multi-tier AI learning courses. "A meaningful share of our AI and ML roles today are being filled internally, nearly double that of last year," said Kunal Purohit, president, Next Gen Services. "Upskilling is no longer measured by participation, it is measured by redeployment," Bhartiya Converge noted, adding that transitions are growing fastest in analytics automation, AI product enablement and solution consulting. However, internal mobility varies depending on the type of role. Internal transitions are a good fit for service-end AI roles, such as analytics operations, automation support, and AI product workflows, according to Xpheno. But lateral hiring continues to play a major role in core AI engineering, due to limited availability. "Only around 6,000 professionals sit in AI engineering across GCCs," said Anil Ethanur, co-founder, Xpheno, noting that roles such as AI architects, ML platform engineers and systems specialists continue to face sharp supply shortages. NASSCOM data show about 15% of GCCs have already reached advanced AI capability maturity, and over 30% of technology and internet companies have established AI Centres of Excellence in India, underscoring the growing depth of internal capability-building. As external hiring for AI positions slows, India is positioning itself as a global hub for enterprise-scale AI workforce development, with GCCs increasingly viewing AI talent as something they must develop rather than buy.