India’s global capability centres (GCCs) are expected to continue expanding in 2026, with industry estimates projecting the addition of 1.2-1.4 lakh new jobs. However, AI-driven automation is set to eliminate over 10,000 roles, mainly in predictable and repetitive functions.
Experts say AI adoption is moving beyond pilot projects into full-scale production across enterprises. Pareekh Jain, CEO of EIIRTrend, noted that technology upgrades have accelerated. “So layoffs and redundancies will increase across the world and Indian GCCs will not be immune from this,” he said.
Around half of the expected job cuts could occur in tech captive centres as AI tools scale across workflows. In 2025, GCCs saw 5,500-6,500 layoffs but still added a net 1,50,000 jobs, according to Gaurav Vasu, CEO of UnearthInsight. Jain estimates over 10,000 layoffs in 2026, including 5,000 in tech GCCs, largely in enterprise and consumer software.
More than 2,000 roles were recently cut at India technology centres of companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft, reportedly due to AI-led efficiencies. Entry-level hiring fell 8% in banking and financial services and 11% in retail and e-commerce.
Amazon, however, denied AI was the main reason. “AI is not the reason behind the vast majority of these reductions. These changes are about continuing to strengthen our culture and teams by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and helping reduce bureaucracy to drive speed and ownership,” the company said. “Even as we make these changes, we’ll also continue hiring and investing in strategic areas and functions that are critical to our future. We’re still in the early stages of building every one of our businesses, and there’s a significant opportunity ahead.”
Automation is accelerating productivity. Code writing is now 30-55% faster. Invoice processing efficiency has improved 40-60%. Candidate screening time has reduced from 15 minutes to about 1 minute per profile. In some operations, automated processing has increased from 30% to nearly 80%.
“AI co-pilots and enterprise automation are redefining roles, creating new ones, and demanding newer skills, while reducing conventional tech roles,” said Neeti Sharma, CEO of TeamLease Digital.
India hosts over 1,800 GCCs employing nearly 2 million professionals. Demand is shifting toward AI engineers, MLOps specialists and cloud experts. GenAI and LLMOps roles have grown 180% year-on-year. Data engineering demand is up 60%, while AI and ML roles have risen over 40%.
AI and cloud skills are seeing salary growth of 18-22% annually. Mid-career professionals earn ₹35-60 lakh, with premiums up to 30% for niche skills.
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