India's Global Capability Centres (GCCs) achieved a record revenue of $98.4 billion in FY26, marking a significant milestone in the country's digital transformation journey. According to a joint report by Awfis Space Solutions and Zinnov, titled 'The Great Workplace Reset: How India GCCs are Redefining Work, Workforce, and Workspace', the industry now hosts 2,117 global capability centres operating 3,728 units across the country. As reported by ETCFO, this represents a nearly 32% growth in GCC numbers since FY21, with the sector employing more than 2.36 million professionals. The transformation demonstrates how India's GCCs are evolving beyond traditional execution roles to assume ownership of products, platforms and advanced technology mandates, creating demand for workspace solutions that can scale quickly and provide operational flexibility.
The evolution demonstrates a clear shift towards higher-value capabilities, with complex problem-solving activities now accounting for 38.1% of GCC work portfolios, while cutting-edge R&D work has doubled between 2015 and 2026. According to the report, nearly half of India's GCCs now undertake an equal or greater share of frontier work compared with their global headquarters, with companies actively building AI products placing twice as much cutting-edge R&D work in India as those primarily adopting third-party AI solutions. India's AI and machine learning talent base within GCCs is projected to nearly double to 250,000 by 2026, with the AI boom driving significant talent demand across the sector. The integration of AI is reshaping business operations across multiple sectors, with GCCs implementing intelligent automation solutions for finance, HR, procurement, supply chain management, and customer support.
AI is emerging as a major demand driver for flexible office spaces as enterprises grapple with workforce uncertainty and prioritize flexibility. According to Business Standard, flexible workspace operators accounted for approximately 25% of total office leasing activity in India in H1 2026, compared to 16% in H1 2025. GCCs currently contribute 40-45% of enterprise flex seat uptake, with large enterprises now accounting for 72% of flex seats nationally, where GCCs alone account for 52%. As reported by WeWork India's study with Redseer, AI hiring in India has grown sixfold since 2019, with more than 700,000 AI professionals currently in the country. Ninety-five percent of enterprises expect to accelerate AI adoption over the next 18-24 months, while 82% of enterprises plan to increase flex usage. AI teams are driving greater demand for collaborative zones, project rooms, meeting spaces and quiet areas, alongside higher requirements for connectivity, power density, IT, audio-visual and security systems.
The GCC boom is transforming how companies set up operations in India, with online calculators now producing rough cost estimates in minutes, cutting into a process that once took months of consulting work. According to HFS Research, AI models are shrinking the time taken for the entire process from a year to a few weeks. Embassy's Embark has launched a comprehensive calculator that generates cost models covering compensation, benefits, real estate, technology, infrastructure, compliance and one-time setup costs, along with likely cost-savings and comparisons with home market setups. Global giants such as JPMorgan, Bank of America, Walmart and Airbus have already set up tech centres in the country, which collectively employ more than 100,000 people. The calculators from NeoIntelli, ScaleGCC, and Aokah offer similar features, with Aokah providing risk assessments and AI-generated hiring forecasts based on tech knowledge availability in shortlisted cities. As reported by HFS Research, at one Fortune 500 chemical manufacturer, the head of GBS used Aokah Explorer to compress initial location shortlisting from 10 weeks of consultant output to less than a week.
The new cost calculators are fundamentally disrupting the traditional GCC setup consulting market, with these calculators cannibalizing traditional consulting revenue that previously required large companies to deploy considerable headcount and spending to figure out operating models. According to HFS Research, the Big Four consulting firms—Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG—and large GCC wings of Indian IT are expected to face challenges because they deploy considerable people and costs into this process. However, these calculators may not impact smaller boutique GCC advisory and set-up firms as significantly. As KAN's Kaushik Srinivasan noted, while getting cost estimates is useful, these calculators would be more valuable if they helped firms understand business models based on their needs—whether they want to cut costs or innovate and spend more in R&D. The transformation represents a fundamental shift from lengthy, costly consulting processes to instant, self-serve assessments that enable mid-market companies to evaluate India as a strategic destination more effectively.
