For the better part of two years, the GCC hiring conversation has had one word attached to nearly every job description, which is AI. But take a stroll into a center that runs clinical trials, designs automotive parts, or prices insurance risk, and the talent priorities would look rather different.
That is not to say AI has vanished from the talent narrative. Traditional engineers are building automation into their projects, data scientists are scrambling to master new tools, all while firms are racing to build the right skills a modern AI-driven workplace would demand.
A recent foundit report said that the global capability centre (GCC) sector is now an AI talent engine, with nearly two in three new roles created in 2026 requiring AI skills, particularly in data science or intelligent automation.
But as GCCs take on crucial business-focused mandates, that talent focus is starting to look different on the ground. The capability a centre owns is no longer defined only by the technology stack it runs, but is majorly defined by the discipline it serves.
Moreover, roles well beyond the traditional tech remit has been the strong lever for the fast growth of GCCs, which majorly spans R&D and engineering, governance, finance, supply chain, and strategy functions across multiple sectors.
And India, for now, remains uniquely placed to fill them. It’s a market still sitting on a surplus of talent abundance, deep enough to staff practically every one of those disciplines in large numbers.“
I don’t think it’s about newer roles. It’s newer profiles that we’re looking at for similar jobs,” Gangapriya Chakraverti, India site head and managing director, Ford Business Solutions told ETGCCWorld.
Are AI skills really enough?
While AI and automation have emerged as central themes, organisations are also looking beyond purely technology-led skills as they take on more difficult and business-critical mandates.
While a centre supporting drug trials needs clinical data expertise as much as it needs AI engineers, a firm designing electric vehicle components needs battery and materials specialists. Same goes for a global insurer, who needs actuaries who understand regulation as well as the latest AI models.
Simply put, AI may be the underneath layer or the foundational engine behind all of this work, but it is not the core principle guiding the mandates.
At Ford Business Solutions, the company’s technology and business services hub supporting automobile major Ford’s global operations, this work spans both digital and functional areas. It currently houses over 12,000 employees focused on these areas.
“It’s not just technology professionals that we are saying need functional skills. That is certainly happening. But we are also seeing finance, accounting, materials planning people who have technology skills or digital skills and experience,” she added.
While the GCC is focused on software engineering, AI and product engineering, the larger focus is also on areas spanning finance, manufacturing engineering, logistics and supply chain management.
The GCC sector in India, which now employs around 2.36 million professionals, is drawing on the country’s talent beyond its traditional technology workforce.
According to Rajiv Gajria, vice president & managing director, Blackbaud India, global organisations across industries are expanding the scope of work led from India, with teams taking greater ownership of products and working more closely toward customer outcomes.
“India is particularly well positioned for this shift because organizations can draw not only on deep technology talent, but also on the business understanding and leadership capability required to take on increasingly complex global responsibilities,” Gajria said.
At present, teams support technology used across fundraising, education, financial management, customer experience, and other mission-driven areas.
“In these environments, knowing how to build technology is only part of the equation. What increasingly sets strong teams apart is their ability to understand context, collaborate across disciplines and global teams, and exercise the judgment needed to deliver meaningful outcomes,” Gajria added.
Firms are prioritising several capabilities spanning specialised domains such as healthcare, finance, engineering, supply chain, risk and advisory.
For Manish Goyal, managing director and head-GCC at Alvarez & Marsal, the larger question is what capabilities the country can own for the wider enterprise.
“Companies are no longer asking only, ‘What technology work can we move to India?’ They are asking, ‘What capabilities can India own for the enterprise?’” Goyal said.
He added how this is creating demand across R&D, data infrastructure, as well as risk, regulatory and controls capabilities.
“We are also seeing growth in market intelligence and analytics, finance, supply chain and procurement, and business strategy and transformation roles. The larger story is that the boundary of what companies believe can be owned from India is steadily expanding,” Goyal said.
This widening mandate is also changing the nature of work GCCs are bringing into India. Engineering and R&D, in particular, are emerging as major areas of focus, with centres increasingly taking on work ranging from product R&D and semiconductor design to EV battery and powertrain engineering, ADAS and sensor fusion.
“GCCs are shifting from execution hubs to owners of intellectual property,” said Devashish Sharma, CEO and co-founder of Taggd, a staffing firm that works closely with GCCs.
“Engineering and R&D is a major focus for GCCs right now, whether it is product R&D, semiconductor design, EV battery and powertrain engineering, ADAS or sensor fusion. This is where we are seeing that shift happen,” Sharma added.
For professional services firm Baker Tilly One India, this opportunity lies in another large talent pool that India has always offered. This majorly comprises accountants, auditors and advisory professionals.
The organisation was built as a capability and transformation hub spanning assurance, tax, consulting, risk advisory, managed services and enterprise services.
“We are growing as a firm, and we expect India to continue to grow with it. But rather than anchor that growth to a specific headcount number, we are focused on the capabilities we need for the future and how AI will reshape both the work we do and our talent mix,” explained Balaji Iyer, India managing principal at Baker Tilly One India.
The talent model reflects the same shift towards professionals who can bring together specialised knowledge, technology fluency and a deeper understanding of the business context.
“The focus is certainly towards getting talent which has deep domain expertise, is AI fluent, is keen to deliver client delight, which means the ability to be trusted advisors to our clients,” Iyer said.
Going ahead, nearly one in four client service hours is expected to be delivered from the India center over the next four to five years, Iyer added.
“AI is not a technology play alone, it is a business play, so that it becomes a way of working in our firm. It’s not something a team does within our organization, it is what everyone embraces, and it’s how we go to market, it’s how we deliver value to clients, it’s how we scale ourselves,” Iyer said.
For US-based insurance major Hartford, the India center primarily focuses on building the capabilities needed for a technology-led organisation, along with nurturing employees with the right skills to take on global responsibilities.
“As the nature of work evolves, the emphasis will increasingly be on people who can combine strong functional expertise with the ability to learn, adapt and make sound decisions in complex environments,” said Padmavati Rallapalli, head of HR, The Hartford India.
Today, the GCC is building capabilities across digital engineering, including customer-facing insurance applications and digital platforms, alongside areas such as cloud engineering, enterprise architecture, and fraud detection.
Domain expertise meets technology
As GCCs move up the value chain, the talent they require is changing.
Organisations are looking beyond conventional technology or functional expertise, looking for professionals who can bring deep domain knowledge while also making the best use of digital tools.
“Increasingly, the value lies in combining technology with deep domain expertise rather than treating them as separate capabilities.AI and automation will continue to reduce manual and repeatable work. As that happens, the opportunity shifts towards bringing together technology, domain expertise, business judgement, and complex problem-solving,” Goyal said.
This is playing out across industries, from finance and healthcare to industrials and supply chain.
“An engineer who understands technology is valuable. An engineer who also understands the economics of the business, the regulatory environment, and the customer problem is significantly more valuable. The same principle applies across finance, healthcare, industrials, supply chain and financial services,” Goyal explained.
The same shift can be seen in the life sciences sector, especially in cities such as Hyderabad, where GCCs are taking on specialised scientific, analytical and regulatory work.
Swiss-based pharmaceutical major Novartis, which set up one of the earliest GCCs in India nearly 25 years ago, has since grown its Hyderabad centre into its largest global hub.
“From its humble beginnings as a support hub, the Novartis Corporate Center Hyderabad uniquely houses biomedical research, drug development, manufacturing and supply operations, and other corporate functions,” explained Ganpat Anchaliya, site head, Novartis Corporate Center, India.
The center works closely across the company’s global drug development programmes, requiring capabilities that extend beyond just AI.
“India is deeply embedded in our global development of medicines model, so it’s less about ‘India-only’ programmes and more about global assets where India plays an important enabling role across chemistry, analytics, biostatistics, data science and clinical operations,” added Anchaliya.
The Hyderabad centre currently supports multiple Phase-II and Phase-III programmes across therapeutic areas such as cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, oncology, immunology and neuroscience.
“Nearly every molecule that reaches late-stage development in Novartis has some contribution from teams in India, whether that is through technical development work at Genome Valley, global clinical trial support, advanced analytics, or regulatory documentation,” Anchaliya noted.
This becomes one of the finest examples of how the GCC talent pool includes highly specialised expertise that is closely tied to the core business of the organisation.
Sharma added how healthcare-linked talent is growing fast without getting equivalent attention. India already has 150+ healthcare-linked GCCs working in biopharma, health-tech, and AI-driven clinical platforms, yet this rarely comes up in conversations about GCC hiring.
“Manufacturing-adjacent capability is another area with real headroom, embedded systems, hardware design, precision engineering. As global supply chains shift, GCCs are starting to co-locate capability development alongside manufacturing, but this remains early-stage in India,” he noted.
Addressing the skill gap
As GCCs build a wider range of capabilities, they are also becoming more cautious about where they find talent.
“GCCs are becoming more thoughtful about where they find talent and how they build access to it,” Goyal said.
Peer GCCs remain an important source, given that these professionals already understand the industry context and the workings of a global organisation. Technology and IT services companies offer another pool of leaders accustomed to managing large teams across geographies, while consulting firms are becoming increasingly relevant for strategy and transformation roles, he added.
Campuses also remain important, particularly engineering and business schools, alongside experienced Indian professionals returning after careers in the US and Europe.
At the same time, companies are expanding their search beyond the traditional talent hubs.
“There is also a greater focus on building talent rather than simply hiring it.The broader point is that India’s talent advantage is no longer just about scale. It is also about how thoughtfully GCCs access, develop and deploy that talent,” Goyal said.
GCCs are developing deeper partnerships with universities and helping shape curricula around the skills they expect to need. They are also working with consulting firms, technology services companies and outsourcing providers to access specialised capabilities that may take longer to build internally.
“Today’s workforce is also seeking opportunities to contribute strategically, solve meaningful problems, and create impact regardless of location. As AI becomes embedded into everyday workflows, the ability to learn continuously, adapt quickly, and make informed decisions will be essential for long-term success,” added Gajria.
According to Taggd’s Sharma, companies are mapping skill clusters to locations before opening roles, while expanding their search beyond the established hubs to emerging talent centres.
“GCCs are mapping skill clusters against location before opening a requisition. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi NCR, Chennai, Mumbai, and Pune remain the primary hubs. But emerging clusters, Kochi, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Indore, are seeing 21 per cent year-on-year growth in GCC demand,” he noted.
India’s advantage is not just the scale of its technology talent. Over the years, the growth of GCCs has also created deep pools of people with experience in specific industries.
That was an important factor in Under Armour’s own decision to set up its center in Bangalore this year.
“We evaluated locations globally before choosing India and eventually Bangalore. One of the major reasons was the depth of retail talent available here. Bangalore has a significant concentration of retail GCCs, which has created a strong pool of professionals who understand both technology and the retail business,” explained Madhu Natesan, vice president and managing director, at Under Armour India.
He added the firm has consciously looked for that combination in its hiring.
“Our leadership team brings strong retail experience, and we have also focused on retail context while building engineering and AI teams. The conversation around India talent has traditionally been very technology-led. But years of GCC growth have also created people with deep knowledge of specific industries and business functions,” Natesan added.
From a sector perspective,he added how GCCs are building deeper capabilities across data and platform engineering, consumer technology, decision products, cloud and infrastructure, and enterprise applications.
Moreover, skills such as creativity, independent thinking, communication and the ability to navigate ambiguity are becoming important.
“These skills become more important as GCCs move from executing defined processes to shaping decisions and owning business outcomes.
The challenge, therefore, is not simply increasing the talent pool. It is developing a larger base of enterprise leaders and problem-solvers. That will play an important role in determining how far up the value chain GCCs in India can move,” Goyal said.
One of India’s potential advantages, according to Iyer, comes from the vantage point its teams have across the broader organisation.
“There’s a very intuitive intelligence that the team in India has. It’s to be able to bring standardisation, it’s able to bring the client context and surface it up as a connected intelligence,” he said.
Because the India team works across US offices, clients, service lines and functions, it has the ability to identify common patterns and bring together insights from different parts of the business.
“India has an abundance of strong technical talent. But as GCCs take on larger mandates, knowing how to build something is only one part of the requirement. People also need to understand the business problem and why it matters,” Natesan said.
AI and automation will undoubtedly continue to shape the GCC talent playbook.
As these centres take on work that is closer to the core of the business, the skills they need are changing too. And that will depend on how well that expertise can be combined with the latest tools and understanding of their business.
