81% of GCCs upskill talent in GenAI; niche hiring at 63% cuts attrition to 9%: EY

India-based Global Capability Centers (GCCs) have moved from experimenting with AI to scaling enterprise-wide deployments, according to the EY India GCC Pulse Survey 2025. The report shows that 58% of GCCs are already investing in Agentic AI, with another 29% expected to scale in the next 12 months. Meanwhile, GenAI adoption continues to strengthen, with 83% of GCCs investing and pilots rising from 37% in 2024 to 43% in 2025.

The survey indicates that GCCs are primarily using GenAI to enhance customer service (65%), followed by finance (53%), operations (49%), and IT and cybersecurity (45%). Business intelligence adoption has surged to 86% from 80% last year, while data strategy implementation has increased sharply to 67% from 51%. Additionally, two-thirds of GCCs are building innovation teams and incubation programs to ideate, test, and globalize solutions from India.

Digital transformation remains the top strategic focus for GCC leaders (61%), followed by cost optimization (54%) and expanding functional scope (51%). Budget allocation is strongest toward technology and transformation (25%), followed by talent and workforce priorities (23%).

Talent strategy continues to evolve with reskilling and tech-led capability building at the core. Nearly 63% of GCCs are hiring for niche skills, while 81% are upskilling internal teams on GenAI. Centers are also prioritizing deep domain expertise (66%), AI and ML (63%), and data engineering and business intelligence (54%). Improved workforce strategies have also reduced attrition, falling from 13% in 2023 to 9% in 2025.

Manoj Marwah, Partner and GCC Sector Leader – Financial Services, EY India, said: “Global enterprises are rethinking how they run their operations. They want simpler models, tighter oversight and a place where AI, data and risk teams can operate in sync. Our survey shows that this shift is well underway at GCCs in India. The combination of talent, cross-functional maturity and a rapidly advancing AI ecosystem gives global firms something they can’t easily build elsewhere. The GCCs we set up now are poised to operate as decision centers shaping enterprise strategy around risk, new products, digital transformation and more.”