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

India’s Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are rapidly emerging as the world’s leading proving ground for agentic AI, fueled by surging investments, expanded innovation charters, and fundamental changes in how these centres operate.

According to the EY GCC Pulse Survey 2025, 58% of GCCs are actively funding agentic AI initiatives, while 83% are scaling up their generative AI programmes — representing one of the quickest technology adoption curves seen in any major enterprise hub globally.

Much of this momentum stems from talent dynamics. “GCCs have moved far beyond the traditional cost-arbitrage model. They now own complete global processes, product development, R&D, and cutting-edge AI work,” notes Neeti Sharma, CEO of TeamLease Digital. She highlights 18–22% year-on-year growth in demand for AI, cloud, and cybersecurity professionals, with GCCs offering 25–30% higher salaries than the broader Indian IT industry for scarce, high-specialisation skills.

Thanks to these richer mandates, greater internal career mobility, and attractive compensation, attrition in digital and AI roles has fallen to a low 9–13%.

The strategic reorientation is equally striking. “Investment and hiring trends in 2025 clearly show India operations shifting from back-office support to core product engineering, platform creation, and innovation ownership,” says Roop Kaistha, Regional Managing Director, AMS APAC. Examples include new R&D-focused centres such as Vanguard’s Hyderabad unit, which concentrates on advanced engineering and AI.

Sectors driving the strongest demand for agentic AI expertise include BFSI, retail, technology, healthcare, and manufacturing. Highly sought-after roles now include MLOps engineers, AI workflow architects, LLM orchestrators, AI product managers, and AI governance experts.

The traditional talent pyramid inside GCCs is being reshaped by new hybrid profiles that blend deep engineering skills, industry knowledge, and rapid experimentation capabilities. Around 27% of upcoming digital positions are expected to be filled through internal upskilling and reskilling programmes, underscoring the transition from pure execution to genuine innovation.

On the operational front, GCCs are reaching a new level of automation sophistication.

“The first fully autonomous, agent-led workflows will appear in high-volume, rule-based processes where the payoff is immediate,” explains Jaspreet Singh, Partner at GT Bharat. Early implementations are already visible in supply chain optimisation, financial close and reporting, collections, procurement, HR onboarding, and customer support.

In one notable example, an agent now produces complete financial forecasts overnight — a process that previously required days of manual effort.

Workforce design is adapting fast. Large operational teams are giving way to smaller, higher-skilled units. New roles such as “agent supervisors” and “exception handlers” are emerging, supported by robust guardrails, audit trails, and outcome-focused structures.

Although most Indian GCCs remain in pilot mode, a growing number have moved agentic systems into production, especially in customer-service automation and finance operations.

“Agentic AI is still early-stage in the GCC ecosystem, but live deployments are already happening, particularly in customer experience and financial processes,” confirms Arindam Sen, Partner and GCC Sector Leader at EY India. The country is increasingly viewed as the global epicentre for designing, prototyping, and refining autonomous AI solutions.

Challenges persist, however. While overall AI talent is growing 5–7% (per Xpheno data), acute shortages remain in senior-level specialties — AI architects, agentic-system developers, and governance experts — roles that are critical for enterprise-wide scaling.

Taken together, India’s GCC landscape is transforming into the preferred global platform for developing, testing, and deploying agentic AI at scale. Through 2025 and beyond, these centres are evolving from efficient delivery units into strategic innovation powerhouses that will significantly influence how enterprises around the world adopt and operationalise autonomous AI systems. This marks a profound and lasting elevation of India’s position in the global technology value chain.

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