India Becomes Largest Retail GCC Hub But Faces AI Talent Gap
India has become the world’s largest retail and packaged consumer goods GCC hub, but a shortage of experienced AI professionals could slow the sector’s next phase of growth.
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India has become the world’s largest hub for retail and FMCG global capability centers (GCCs), with 180 centers employing about 272,300 professionals, according to a TeamLease Digital report.
The report, The Retail Pivot: Consumer GCCs Find Their India Edge, said India’s retail GCC workforce is 34% larger than the combined total across Poland, the Philippines, Mexico, Germany and Egypt.
India also leads major markets in AI adoption within retail GCCs, with AI roles accounting for 5% to 7% of the workforce.
But the report warned that the sector faces a significant shortage of experienced AI professionals, with only 320 employees having more than eight years of AI experience across all retail and FMCG GCCs in the country.
“India’s retail GCC story has moved decisively beyond scale. The country is increasingly becoming the place where AI-led retail strategy is built and owned, not just executed,” said Neeti Sharma, CEO of TeamLease Digital.
She said the limited pool of senior AI professionals and the concentration of talent in a single city pose a capability risk for the sector.
Bengaluru remains the largest retail GCC hub with around 84,000 professionals, followed by Delhi NCR with more than 66,000 and Hyderabad with about 45,000.
Bengaluru also accounts for 54% of India’s retail GCC AI talent, while Hyderabad is emerging as a secondary AI hub and Pune as an engineering centre.
Retail and e-commerce account for 55.8% of the workforce in the sector, followed by food, beverage and ingredients at 15.7%, and personal care and household products at 11.5%.
Hiring momentum has also accelerated. The report estimates retail GCCs created more than 52,000 job opportunities in 2025, nearly doubling hiring demand from the previous year.
Technology, customer success and supply chain functions currently make up 60% of the workforce and are expected to contribute more than 80% of hiring demand by 2028.
Technology and engineering hiring alone is projected to increase from about 25,100 roles in 2025 to 41,000 by 2028, while data and analytics is expected to emerge as the fastest-growing function, driven by demand for skills in large language model engineering, GenAIOps, MLOps and vector databases.
The report also found that AI workforce penetration within retail GCCs has more than doubled from 2.1% in 2022 to 4.8% in 2025 and is expected to reach 7.2% in 2026.
To meet demand, retail GCCs are increasingly hiring from outside the sector. More than 90% of the 28,500 professionals hired over the past year came from industries including IT services, product companies and consulting.
The talent shortage has pushed up salaries. AI and machine learning professionals with three to six years of experience command median annual pay of ₹46 lakh, while professionals with more than 15 years of experience and expertise in both AI and retail can earn more than ₹1.2 crore a year, the report said.
