58% of India GCCs invest in Agentic AI as innovation roles widen: EY survey

EY GCC Pulse Survey 2025 shows India's GCCs rapidly moving from GenAI pilots to enterprise-scale Agentic AI, strengthening innovation pipelines and taking on wider global decision-making roles

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India’s Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are moving decisively from AI experimentation to full-scale enterprise deployment, with 58 per cent now investing in Agentic AI and another 29 per cent set to scale within a year, according to the EY GCC Pulse Survey 2025 released on Sunday, November 23.

 

The survey shows that India GCCs are evolving into strategic decision-making and innovation hubs for global enterprises, powered by rising GenAI adoption, deeper digital maturity and expanding mandates.

 

The survey captured responses from leaders across multiple sectors between August and October 2025. Participating GCCs reported an average headcount of 800 employees.

 

What’s driving the shift to Agentic AI?

 

According to the survey, 83 per cent of GCCs are already investing in GenAI, with pilots rising from 37 per cent last year to 43 per cent. Upskilling has accelerated in parallel, with 81 per cent of GCCs training internal teams on GenAI.

 

GCCs are focusing GenAI where impact is immediate: customer service (65 per cent), finance (53 per cent), operations (49 per cent), and IT and cybersecurity (45 per cent). 

 

The survey notes a rapid transition from experimentation to enterprise-scale AI, describing Agentic AI as the “next frontier” of intelligent automation.

 

How are innovation pipelines maturing?

 

Two-thirds (67 per cent) of GCCs have created dedicated innovation teams and incubation platforms. The report highlights rising use of structured idea pipelines to generate and globalise innovation out of India.

 

The firm also launched its Intelligent GCC solution suite to help organisations design AI-native centres and embed autonomous intelligence across value chains.

 

How is global decision-making role expanding?

 

GCCs in India are taking on leadership responsibilities traditionally held by headquarters. Over half (52 per cent) now hold shared accountability for global decisions, and another 26 per cent are consulted regularly. Twenty per cent are moving toward full ownership of select global functions, the survey states.

 

GCC leaders identified digital transformation (61 per cent), cost reduction (54 per cent) and functional expansion (51 per cent) as top priorities. Centres are allocating the highest budgets to technology and transformation (25 per cent), followed by talent and workforce (23 per cent).

 

On the operating model front:

 

• 92 per cent aim to deliver value beyond cost arbitrage
• 87 per cent plan to manage end-to-end global processes
• 84 per cent continue in-house operations, though outsourcing has risen to 12 per cent

 

Where are GCCs located and why does it matter?

 

The survey shows most GCCs are concentrated in Bengaluru (46 per cent), followed by Pune (39 per cent) and Hyderabad (24 per cent), with rising activity in tier-2 hubs such as Ahmedabad and Jaipur.

 

GCCs are prioritising reskilling (71 per cent), tech-led growth (70 per cent), and niche hiring in areas such as domain expertise (66 per cent), AI/ML (63 per cent) and data engineering and BI (54 per cent). Attrition fell to 9 per cent in 2025, down from 13 per cent in 2023.

 

What risks are GCCs managing?

 

Cybersecurity maturity remains moderate across the sector, with only 7 per cent of GCCs reporting a fully embedded cyber Centre of Excellence. Monitoring of third-party data access rose from 44 per cent to 60 per cent year-on-year.

 

The report highlights workforce-related risks, such as niche talent shortages, rising people costs and retention pressures, as the dominant risk category. 

 

Transfer pricing remains the top regulatory challenge (63 per cent), while compliance complexity and data privacy concerns have risen to 42 per cent.

 

Manoj Marwah, partner and GCC sector leader, Financial Services, EY India, said the findings show a structural shift. “The combination of talent, cross-functional maturity and a rapidly advancing AI ecosystem gives global firms something they can’t easily build elsewhere,” he said.

 

Arindam Sen, partner and GCC sector leader, Technology, Media and Entertainment and Telecommunications, EY India, said GCCs are “creating innovation arbitrage, beyond just cost advantage”, and increasingly piloting AI use cases that “materially change how work gets done”.