AI-first Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are reshaping India’s position from a delivery hub to a strategic engine for enterprise innovation. In 2025, more than half of GCCs are already investing in agentic AI and over 80 per cent are scaling GenAI, signalling a move from pilots to full-scale production.
India is witnessing a powerful shift in the GCC landscape as global enterprises are shifting traditional delivery cost-focused hubs to AI-first, engineering-driven hubs. These new-age GCCs are being designed as high-value product and innovation engines which are built to modernise platforms, accelerate digital transformation and embed intelligence into core business functions. Unlike earlier GCC models that focused primarily on process standardisation, today’s AI-led centres are structured to influence global product strategy, accelerate innovation cycles, and drive enterprise-wide technology decisions.
“The current GCC model is centred on creating end-to-end digital and technology capabilities rather than simply managing operations. Companies are adopting a Build–Operate–Transfer structure, where everything from entity setup, governance, compliance, payroll, HR operations, facilities, and workforce management is handled through a unified framework. This approach allows enterprises to scale engineering and AI capabilities rapidly without operational friction,” observed Raghu Pareddy, founder and CEO, Wissen Technology.
Experts point out that the emphasis is on building strong governance, robust compliance, secure technology environments, and talent-first cultures that support long-term capability building. These GCCs are now designed to operate at global engineering standards, delivering platform engineering, cloud modernisation, data modernisation, AI/ML pipelines, cybersecurity frameworks, and enterprise automation.
“As talent expectations have expanded far beyond coding skills. The engineers today are expected to understand distributed systems, automation frameworks, scalable architectures and the application of AI in real-world enterprise workflows. These teams will help shape digital roadmaps, solve complex technical challenges and build global products from India,” pointed out Pareddy.
AI-focused GCCs are now functioning as extensions of global engineering organisations. They contribute directly to building platforms that use AI for prediction, decision intelligence, workflow automation, fraud prevention, hyper-personalisation, risk modelling and cloud acceleration.
As these centres bring together the cloud, data functions and engineering under one common roof, they are becoming the core engines for modernising legacy architectures and scaling digital experiences. They will also be taking over the ownership of high-impact areas like DevOps automation, cloud migrations, advanced analytics and intelligent operations, which directly impact business outcomes for global companies.
The rise of AI-native GCCS promises a new chapter in India’s technology leadership. As enterprises worldwide are accelerating digital transformation, they require hubs which help them deliver capabilities and not just services. “India’s ability to offer deep engineering talent, mature digital infrastructure, and strong regulatory alignment positions it at the centre of this global shift. The upcoming wave of GCC growth will be defined by the companies that effectively are embedding AI, cloud and automation into the foundation of their capability centres, and India is already leading that transformation,” explained Pareddy.
Many GCCs are able to set up their centres smoothly due to the talent available in the country, as gradually India is becoming a GCC hub. “GCCs are able to hire AI talent and now design, build and run real, production-grade AI solutions for their global requirements. As GCCs now move from digital enablement to advanced AI acceleration, they are looking at setting up large centres in India for AI orchestration, model tuning, ML Ops and building responsible AI frameworks. GCCs are able to hire job seekers that bring the right balance of deep engineering skills, along with advanced AI and ML skills and domain expertise,” Neeti Sharma, CEO, TeamLease Digital, told THE WEEK.
GCC hiring is now entered on AI engineers, data and platform specialists, AI-ops talent and product builders who can own end-to-end models from India. “Rapid AI adoption is creating early signs of wage dispersion as specialist roles command premiums while routine and mid-level work contracts. The future model depends on combining innovation mandates with large-scale reskilling, ensuring AI augments broad employee cohorts and enabling India to anchor the world’s most advanced AI-led GCC constructs,” pointed out Roop Kaistha, Regional Managing Director, APAC, AMS.
It has become very clear that the Indian GCC landscape is currently witnessing a seismic shift. AI is no doubt the way of the future, and GCCs can enhance their value propositions by smartly adopting this technology. There are potential gains not only in throughput but also in the quality of the output, long associated with hard work, by replacing it with the smart, strategic application of what AI has to offer. This translates into operationalising AI systems of various flavours - agentic, generative, and so on, for their own processes, as well as a part of the offerings that they produce.
“There is a need for a workforce that is genuinely comfortable working with AI. GCCs recognise the importance of hiring and upskilling, but to truly thrive, a strategic approach is essential. At Hexagon, we are on this journey through diverse use cases. Our focus on areas such as end use, leadership and governance, and builder and developer helps position us to become an AI-first capability multiplier. It ensures we not only meet current demands but also pave the way for future innovations,” said Rajesh Dhyani, Executive Director-Geosystems at Hexagon R&D India.
With a tectonic shift in the AI-first GCC ecosystem in India, the demand for AI specialists will continue to rise from operational models to hiring priorities. “AI is fast becoming integral to the growth of GCCs. GenAI skill-building and AI-augmented operations are two of the top investment areas for India-based GCCs across sectors. Similarly, in hiring, AI Governance Architects, AI Policy Strategists and GenAI Product Owners (22%) are some of the most sought-after profiles. The trajectory is evident, GCCs are no longer adapting to AI, they are designing for an AI-optimised world,” remarked Sachin Alug, CEO, NLB Services.
