Data analytics and Artificial Intelligence firm Tredence has announced a GCC business unit focused on helping capability centers transition from service hubs to what it calls, “intelligence engines.” On the sidelines of Nasscom NTLF 2026, we speak with company chief growth officer Rakesh Sancheti about its growing talent hub in India, specialising in GenAI and Agentic AI services and competing with IT services firms to gain ground in the AI transformation race.
Q. What can you tell us about the dedicated GCC business unit that Tredence has launched today?
A. Tredence has always been focused around its core market of AI and data instead of branching into other areas like platform and digital engineering services.
Traditionally, GCCs were considered more like back-offices that supplied cheap labour but now for most of our Fortune 500 clients, GCCs have become the true innovator at enabling AI-led transformation. This is where we think investing in GCCs will bring us closer to the customer.
Most of those customers are investing heavily especially in India given our talent capabilities in AI. Over the last six months, the number of customer visits we have seen in our experience center have doubled. We feel our strengths will be enhanced with the GCC unit and it will be a win-win situation for our clients along with our AI and domain expertise.
Q. GCCs themselves are shifting from its back offices identity to becoming AI innovation hubs. Is there a difference between the two?
A. There are a lot of back-office functions that are being disrupted majorly. One of our clients I was speaking to mentioned re-thinking the back-end IT tasks and whether they will even exist with simple Agentic AI tools coming in.
On the other hand for GCCs, even though they were still doing some R&D investment and AI innovation work but the person signing the cheque for the budget was sitting in the headquarters in either the U.S. or Europe.
Now in the last two years, the dependency has been removed as the finance heads looking into the budgets are based out of the GCCs directly so that has changed things up quite a bit.
Q. What do you think about the recent slide in IT stocks that was kick started by the Anthropic AI tool release?
A. The significant dip in the markets points at the vulnerabilities that exist. The market is looking for change from the IT sector. Meanwhile, other new age niche players like Tredence which work in last mile delivery will not see any detrimental impact, instead it offers an opportunity for us.
Large companies however, with hundreds and thousands of employee headcount will have to redesign how to transform themselves. It’s a reality check for everyone calls for upskilling on a massive scale. I have my own doubts about how these companies will survive. We’re not considering doubling down on our headcount even though GCCs do hire.
The employees we will add will be limited and proportionate. We will be adding more net value and the growth will be more balanced.
Q. Just last week, Tredence announced expansion plans in hiring in Hyderabad with 1,800 new jobs. Do you plan to continue hiring at this pace?
A. The demand is expected to grow for us as traditional players aren’t able to fulfill client expectations. The incoming requests that we’re seeing must be signs of a shrinking business elsewhere. We have to diversify our talent to meet these opportunities which is why we’re expanding in other parts of India aside from Bengaluru.
Q. Recently, consolidation in GCCs and a shift towards AI is also leading to layoffs across GCCs in some functions. Do you expect this to continue?
A. Yes, there will be some ongoing impact in terms of some job roles that will naturally go away. In the long-run, the winners will be among the partnerships we form. Maybe five years ago, clients chased GCCs that were the cheapest but now that’s not the measurement. It’s about the quality of talent and who will add more value in the acceleration of their transformation journey so it helps that we have positioned ourselves as a premium player.
Q. Do you have a number that you’re looking to hire for the new GCC unit?
A. I can’t disclose a specific number but there are three buckets of talent. Firstly, in the core delivery business, secondly, at acceleration and innovation and thirdly, for sales roles. We’re looking at 50% growth overall from the new GCC unit. The new job roles that will become more prevalent while hiring will be full-stack engineers, technical, GenAI and AI agent engineering roles.