India’s GCCs face a 40% AI skills gap. Why building talent from within is the new strategy, not just hiring

India's GCC story was built on scale. For years, success meant hiring fast and building large technology teams to support global operations. But as AI reshapes the talent landscape, scale alone is no longer enough.

"The next competitive advantage will not come from hiring more people; it will come from creating the right capabilities," says Kapil Joshi, CEO – IT Staffing, Quess Corp.

Quess Corp's India GCC Tech Talent Landscape – Q1 FY27 report suggests GCCs are responding by investing more in internal capability building. Professionals with 4–12 years of experience accounted for 56% of hiring demand in Q1 FY27, even as AI & Data Analytics recorded the widest supply-demand gap at 36–40%, followed by Platform Engineering at 32–36%.

From ‘talent acquisition’ to ‘talent orchestration’

Joshi says the shift has been building over the past few years as demand has become increasingly concentrated around emerging technologies.

"Three years ago, emerging technologies—AI, data, cloud, cybersecurity and platform engineering—accounted for about 32% of overall hiring demand. These areas have been growing at roughly 35–40% year-on-year, and today they account for over 40% of hiring demand. In GCCs specifically, nearly 60% of hiring demand now falls within these categories. Three years ago, that figure was only about 30%," he tells Business Today.

The rapid growth has widened the gap between the specialised skills organisations need and the talent available in the market.

"Rather than competing for a limited pool of specialised talent, GCCs are increasingly investing in role-adjacent reskilling to transform existing engineering talent into AI, cloud and platform specialists," says Joshi.

The rise of role-adjacent careers

Rather than expecting employees to reinvent themselves, GCCs are helping them transition into adjacent, high-demand technology roles.

The report highlights career transitions such as Backend Developers becoming Applied AI Engineers, Data Engineers moving into AI Data Platform Engineering, and Cloud Engineers shifting into Platform Engineering.

“We’re seeing higher levels of internal mobility, with employees moving across functions after acquiring new capabilities. That’s really the essence of talent orchestration: creating pathways for people to move and grow based on skills rather than being confined to traditional career tracks.”

Buy, Borrow and Build: The new workforce strategy

Joshi says GCCs are increasingly combining three workforce strategies:

• Buy — lateral hiring
• Borrow — subcontracting
• Build — reskilling and redeploying existing employees

Subcontracting has risen from around 18% of GCC talent requirements three years ago to nearly 26% today, while an estimated 25–40% of GCC roles are now being filled through internal talent movement.

Why hiring alone won't solve the problem

Joshi says relying only on external hiring will become increasingly difficult.

“The overall AI skills gap remains around 40%, but for specialised roles such as AI architects, prompt engineers and AI governance specialists, shortages rise to 70–80%.  In practical terms, for every ten open roles, there may be only two or three qualified active candidates available,” he adds.

This scarcity is forcing organisations to rethink workforce planning not just as a hiring challenge, but as a capability-building exercise.

Learning becomes the new career insurance

"The lifespan of technology skills is now less than two years," says Joshi. "The only way to stay relevant is through continuous learning."

He adds that reskilling succeeds only when organisations foster a culture of continuous learning backed by leadership commitment. GCCs are also strengthening future talent pipelines through internships, apprenticeships and deeper partnerships with academic institutions.

GCCs must become creators of talent

Joshi believes the shift marks a turning point for India’s GCC ecosystem.

"GCCs can no longer be mere consumers of talent. They must become creators of talent," says Joshi.

As AI reshapes technology work, the winners will be organisations that can continuously build new capabilities from within rather than relying solely on external hiring.