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How India’s GCCs are evolving into AI-native engines of enterprise value
Navigating the skills imperative for India’s GCCs in the AI era
Assess your GCC’s composite skills maturity with our diagnostic survey.
India’s Global Capability Centre ecosystem is entering a decisive new phase. What began as an offshore delivery model has become a strategic capability base for global enterprises, with centres in India now driving product engineering, advanced analytics, cybersecurity, AI research and enterprise-wide transformation. The report, based on a survey of 200 senior GCC executives across eight industries, positions GCCs as one of India’s most important structural advantages but also makes it clear that this advantage will only be sustained if talent development keeps pace with the demands of the AI era.
The central challenge is not access to talent alone, but the ability to build and scale the right kind of talent fast enough. GCCs increasingly need composite capabilities that combine frontier AI skills with foundational strengths such as domain knowledge, business judgment and leadership strength.
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About the survey
The report is based on a PwC India survey of 200 senior GCC executives across eight industries. Respondents included C-suite leaders, GCC heads and senior decision-makers from major hubs such as Bengaluru and Hyderabad and others. The survey captures how established GCCs are thinking about AI adoption, workforce transformation, and capability building.
Key findings
India’s GCC ecosystem has scaled significantly, with 2100+ centres, 2.36 million skilled professionals, and USD 98.4 billion in revenue in FY26.1 GCCs also accounted for a larger share of India’s services exports, rising from 19.7% in FY19 to 23.5% in FY26.2 The sector is increasingly moving beyond delivery to value creation, with one in five centres targeting global P&L responsibility by 2030. This shows that GCCs are becoming important platforms for innovation, enterprise leadership, and long-term economic contribution.
The four eras of India’s GCC journey
Source: PwC India analysis of survey data.
The report shows that GCCs are placing strong emphasis on workforce readiness as AI changes the nature of work. Around 72% of GCCs need to reskill or upskill more than 40% of their workforce, with especially high demand in Energy (87%), Life sciences (80%), and Healthcare (80%). Rather than signalling a problem, this reflects how actively GCCs are preparing for the next phase of growth. The findings highlight the importance of continuous learning, industry-aligned training, and collaboration with academia and skilling partners.
Distribution of reskilling/upskilling needs
Source: PwC India analysis of survey data.
The report suggests that GCCs have a strong opportunity to create more value by strengthening skills. GCCs estimate that skill gaps currently affect up to 10% of value creation, but they also believe they can unlock 7.83% of annual revenue today, rising to 19.32% of total sector value by 2030. This reinforces the idea that skilling is not only about capability building, but also about growth and competitiveness. The overall message is positive: targeted capability development can translate directly into business value.
Revenue or value creation impact of unfilled or under-skilled roles on GCC performance
Source: PwC India analysis of survey data.
AI ambitions across GCCs are growing faster than leadership readiness, with average AI literacy among senior leaders standing at just 27%. More than 90% of GCCs say their leadership teams are not yet sufficiently AI-literate for strategic decision-making. The gap extends beyond technical knowledge, with the biggest deficits in change management for AI-driven workforce transformation (58%), human–AI teaming (54%) and enterprise-wide AI strategy (45%).Taken together, the findings suggest that leadership capability will be as important as workforce capability in determining how effectively GCCs translate AI ambition into enterprise value.
AI literacy readiness among senior leaders
Source: PwC India analysis of survey data.
PwC India’s analysis shows that GCCs are increasingly backing a multi-pronged skilling approach rather than relying on a single intervention. The most supported measure is industry-co-designed “GCC-ready” certification standards and credentials (53%), followed closely by AI centres of excellence and AI-powered learning platforms for workforce reskilling at scale (51%). GCCs are also placing strong emphasis on cross-GCC executive AI leadership academies (48%), apprenticeship-at-scale models linking academia with project work (44%), and industry-led sectoral skills consortia with real-time demand-supply intelligence (43%). This pattern suggests that GCCs see AI-era talent building as an ecosystem challenge, requiring standardised credentials, leadership development, applied learning and sector-specific pathways working in tandem.
Top interventions by expected impact
Source: PwC India analysis of survey data.
Note: Respondents could select more than one option.
Key themes
India’s GCC story is moving beyond operational excellence into a new era defined by innovation, product development, enterprise leadership, and value creation. The report highlights the shift from being back offices to becoming global hubs for AI, digital, and innovation capabilities. GCCs are no longer just executing global mandates, they are increasingly shaping strategy, owning business outcomes, and building next-generation technologies and products for the future.
The report repeatedly reinforces that the future will depend on composite capabilities — a mix of deep domain expertise, frontier skills, digital fluency, analytical thinking, communication, and leadership. As AI reshapes work, the challenge is not whether GCCs can become strategic; they already are. The real question is whether the ecosystem can build the frontier, hybrid, and leadership capabilities at the speed and scale required.
A key theme in the report is the rise of innovation and R&D hubs across the GCC landscape. GCCs are increasingly creating intellectual property, leading frontier research, developing AI applications, owning product architecture, and driving global innovation. This reflects a broader evolution from service delivery to enterprise intelligence, with India emerging as a place where global enterprises can build products, platforms, and business models for the AI era.
The report shows that GCCs are becoming strategic engines of AI-driven value creation. With one in five centres targeting global P&L responsibility and many leaders expecting an enhanced operating mandate, the focus is shifting toward business ownership, strategic decision-making, and end-to-end accountability. This marks an important transition from execution to innovation (expertise), and from cost to capability.
The report underscores that success will require more than hiring. It calls for the simultaneous reskilling of the existing workforce, stronger industry-academia partnerships, deeper investment in leadership development, and coordinated action across GCCs, universities, technology partners, skilling providers, and policymakers. The path forward is a shared agenda for skills transformation that can turn India’s talent advantage into a lasting innovation advantage.
GCC talent and skills readiness diagnostic
- All information shared through this 15-minute survey will be treated with strict confidentiality and will not be disclosed externally by PwC.
- The data will be used solely for benchmarking purposes and to assess your GCC’s composite skills maturity.
- Based on the information you provide, we will prepare a tailored analysis and share the insights with you at the earliest.
Thank you for taking the time to participate in the survey.
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