Half of India’s GCC Work at Risk Amid Shift Up Value Chain
Routine work shrinks and skill cycles shorten as transition to higher-value roles remains uneven, Zinnov report says.
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India’s Global Capability Centers (GCCs) are entering a new phase of disruption, with a large share of their current work at risk even as the country moves deeper into higher-value roles, a report by consulting firm Zinnov said.
The study, titled India GCC AI Opportunity Report 2026 and developed with Indiaspora, estimates that about 55% of GCC work portfolios in India are exposed to AI-led displacement, reflecting the rapid shift away from routine, process-driven tasks that once powered the sector’s growth.
That shift marks a turning point for India’s GCC model, which has moved steadily up the value chain over the past decade but still retains significant exposure to routine work, the report said.
A decade ago, as much as 70–80% of GCC work was focused on process-driven tasks. That mix has since evolved, with expertise-led roles now accounting for nearly a third of portfolios and more advanced work approaching levels seen at global headquarters, according to the report.
Nearly half of GCCs now deliver innovation-led work comparable to their parent organizations, positioning India as a co-creation hub rather than a back-office extension, it said.
But the transition remains uneven. Procedural and commodity work still make up a substantial share of current portfolios, leaving many operations exposed as repetitive and rules-based functions are increasingly automated, compressing the time companies have to adapt.
The report said the useful life of experience-based skills is shrinking rapidly, with expertise becoming outdated much faster than in previous cycles.
The impact varies widely across companies. GCCs that build capabilities in-house tend to have greater exposure to advanced work and lower dependence on routine tasks, while adopters, particularly in sectors such as banking, continue to carry higher exposure to automatable roles, according to the report.
The divergence is already visible in outcomes. In sectors such as semiconductors, companies including Qualcomm and Intel are using their India centers for core research and product development, reflecting a broader shift toward global innovation mandates, the report said.
Companies will need to accelerate internal automation, deepen domain expertise and expand their role in research and development to remain competitive, it said.
The pace of change, however, is accelerating. “AI won’t give us another decade,” the report said.
