NEW YORK, July 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Over the past decade, Global Capability Centers (GCCs) have undergone a fundamental transformation, evolving from cost arbitrage centers into innovation hubs, technology accelerators, and strategic business partners. The market reflects this momentum: India alone now hosts 2,117 GCCs employing 2.36 professionals and generating nearly USD 98.4 billion in annual revenue, with more than 506 Forbes Global 2000 companies operating centers in the country (Nasscom).
Yet as ambitions have grown, so has the complexity of execution. Enterprise leaders today are navigating larger portfolios, more demanding stakeholders, and higher expectations for measurable business outcomes. The decision is made. The direction is set. What separates leaders from the rest is what happens next.
More than 72% of new GCC builds experience material delays or cost overruns within the first 24 months. That is not a talent problem or a location problem. It is a system problem, and it is the problem Aokah was built to solve.
GCCs are no longer experimenting with AI. They are embedding it across software engineering, finance, HR, analytics, and customer operations. The pressure is now on leadership to move from point solutions to enterprise-wide adoption with measurable value.
The data confirms that the shift is structural, not incremental. 83% of GCCs are already investing in Generative AI, and 58% are currently investing in Agentic AI, with another 29% planning to scale within the next year. Globally, close to three-quarters of enterprises plan to deploy Agentic AI within two years. Organizations that treat AI as a strategic capability rather than a departmental tool will set the pace for the next phase of GCC evolution.
Traditional governance models built around status updates and milestone tracking are giving way to frameworks centered on business impact and value realization. Enterprise leaders are demanding visibility into what is working and real-time insights into whether transformation initiatives are delivering the value promised to the business.
The governance gap is real and widening. Only 21% of organizations have a mature governance model in place for agentic AI, even as deployment scales at speed. Nearly half of organizations (48%) say they have introduced AI without redesigning the workflows or roles it sits within, and just 12% report redesign at scale with a new operating model behind it. This shift requires new metrics, new conversations, and a fundamentally different relationship between GCC leadership and the enterprise.
The delivery center model is giving way to something far more strategic. GCCs are increasingly positioned as catalysts for enterprise-wide transformation, playing a central role in innovation, change management, and long-term capability building.
The evidence is now beyond anecdotal. More than half of India's Global Capability Centers (52%) hold shared accountability for global decisions, and 45% are driving global strategy leadership from India. Two-thirds of GCCs (67%) are creating dedicated innovation teams and incubation programs to generate, test, and globalize ideas. The most mature GCCs are no longer asked what they deliver. They are asked what they make possible.
The GCC workforce today combines deep domain expertise with AI-enabled capabilities. Leading organizations are investing in reskilling, new operating models, and ways of working that amplify human judgment through technology rather than simply automating tasks. Talent strategy is no longer just about hiring the right people. It is about building the right human-AI teams.
The urgency is highlighted by a significant disconnect: 84% of companies have not redesigned jobs to accommodate AI, despite high automation expectations and increasing deployment. Enterprise leaders identify insufficient worker skills as the primary barrier to integrating AI into current workflows. The organizations that address this gap first will gain a clear talent and performance edge.
As transformation programs grow in scale and complexity, the organizations that will lead are those capable of executing consistently while maintaining visibility into risks, dependencies, and outcomes at every stage of the process. The rapid pace of change is creating systemic exposure: 78% of technology leaders say AI adoption is surpassing their organization's ability to manage the business effectively.
Aokah's analysis of over 300 globalization programs revealed that more than 72% of new GCC projects face significant delays or cost overruns within the first 24 months. These are not exceptions; they are the standard when there is no structured execution intelligence. Globalizing Work with Confidence™ is no longer just a goal. It is a necessary operational requirement that distinguishes organizations that grow effectively from those that get stuck.
Aokah's Five Wisdoms℠ framework, developed from over twenty years of experience across 300+ globalization programs, provides enterprise leaders with a structured, proven method to navigate each stage of the globalization process. From exploration and setup to optimization and sustained performance, Aokah combines proprietary insights with expert guidance to help organizations move faster, avoid costly mistakes, and build GCCs that fulfill their strategic goals.
Aokah gives enterprises the System, Expertise, and Wisdom to Globalize Work with Confidence™. Built on the Five Wisdoms℠ framework and grounded in over 300 globalization programs, Aokah helps enterprise leaders explore, build, and optimize GCCs that deliver measurable, sustainable business outcomes.
Learn more at
- Nasscom-Zinnov GCC Value Orbit Report, FY2026- EY India GCC Pulse Survey 2025 (published November 2025)- Deloitte State of AI in the Enterprise, January 2026 (3,235 business and IT leaders, 24 countries)- Deloitte AI Institute Pulse Check Series, 2026 (3,700 professionals)- EY Technology Pulse Poll, February 2026 (500 US business leaders)
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