Gen AI top priority for 70% of GCCs in India as they look to boost operations: EY survey

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The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) within global capability centres (GCCs) in India is accelerating, with nearly 70 percent investing in generative AI, EY India GCC Pulse Survey 2024 has said.

"While cybersecurity remains a priority compared to our 2023 GCC Pulse Survey, the rise of Gen AI adoption is not surprising," the report, released on November 13, said.

The survey highlights the transformative role of technology in driving growth within GCCs, with a clear emphasis on Gen AI, Arindam Sen, partner and GCC sector leader–technology, media & telecommunications, EY India, said.

"The next frontier for GCCs will be in integrating Gen AI into their core business functions to create intelligent workflows, enhance decision-making processes, and offer more personalised customer experiences," Sen was quoted as saying in the release.

The survey is based on 88 GCCs in India across industries and functions, revealing that 78 percent of these centres are skilling teams for Gen AI, while 37 percent are piloting use cases. This highlights a shift from experimentation to practical applications of AI focused on talent management and risk mitigation.

India has the potential to add $438 billion to its GDP, up from $359 billion, on account of Gen AI adoption by 2029-30, over and above its baseline estimates, the report said.

When asked about GCCs’ top three priorities for the next year, all respondents identified climate change and sustainability agenda as the top focus area. This was followed by 85 percent wanting to expand functional capabilities and 61 percent to drive enterprise-wide digital transformation.

Key risks to these priorities include the rising cost of talent, challenges in attracting talent at the required scale or speed and improvement in leadership development.

The survey asked GCCs about the top three areas where they plan to leverage Gen AI capabilities. Almost 70 percent of the firms said customer experience, which includes applications such as automated chatbots, personalised support and sentiment analysis.

This was followed by 57 percent citing operations as the next focus area, while 47 percent aim to leverage Gen AI for IT and cybersecurity.

A little over 50 percent of GCCs said growth is increasingly reliant on technology rather than expanding headcount, with an emphasis on reskilling staff.

The future of work remains hybrid, the report found. About 70 percent of the participants believe that the majority of their workforce will continue to work flexibly for the next 12 months, with only 9.9 percent expected to work entirely from office.

And contrary to what many would like to believe, this shift does not pose a significant risk to business productivity or service quality, the report found.