Dados e IA

How businesses can start to close the AI readiness gap

artigo 6 de fev de 2025 Tempo de leitura: 1 minutos

By Michael Bradshaw, Global Applications, Data and AI Practice Leader at Kyndryl

Today’s business and technology leaders are caught in a global race to capitalize on powerful advances in artificial intelligence (AI). In this competitive arena, it’s exceedingly common to encounter businesses that consider AI a strategic imperative. What’s rarer is finding those convinced their current efforts will lead to future success.

The extent of this paradox is revealed in AI-specific insights from the Kyndryl Readiness Report, a global survey of 3,200 business executives combined with exclusive data from Kyndryl Bridge, our AI-driven digital business platform. While 86% of industry leaders are confident their AI implementation is best-in-class, only 29% feel their posture is ready for future risks. And despite significant investments in AI technologies — from machine learning to generative AI — many leaders are not yet seeing a positive return on those investments.

As highlighted in the findings, ongoing challenges impede AI readiness, including data privacy and security concerns, regulatory requirements, and uncertainty about value as leaders define short- and long-term success. Legacy systems, insufficient data foundations and acute talent shortages also continue to limit enterprises’ ability to fully integrate AI across their operations.

AI readiness gap

86%

of leaders are confident their AI implementation is best-in-class

71%

of leaders don’t feel their AI implementation is completely ready to manage future risks

64%

report feeling their IT is not prepared for AI implementation because of a lack of IT skills and talent

Beyond these challenges, however, is a cardinal truth that leaders must face in this new era of technological disruption. Simply implementing and investing in AI does not guarantee readiness to deploy it at scale, confidently manage emerging risks, or extract long-term value. As enterprises look to the future, closing the readiness gap will require leaders who champion change — and results will depend upon people as much as technology.

Consider the average IT estate. According to Kyndryl Bridge data, 44% of servers, storage, networks and operating systems within today’s businesses are approaching or at end-of-life. These legacy estates often resemble old, unsteady towers, supported by layer upon layer of scaffolding. As their foundations are neglected, businesses are left chipping away at surface value.

In a perfect world, leaders could tear down that scaffolding and build from the ground up, moving away from outdated systems and ways of working, and moving closer to the streamlined, integrated environments that support AI deployment. But the reality is that many companies will need to strike a delicate balance as they transform to fully harness AI. However they proceed, the path forward will involve managing technological, organizational and behavioral change — a complex undertaking requiring strong leadership at every turn.

“

As enterprises look to the future, closing the readiness gap will require leaders who champion change — and results will depend upon people as much as technology.

Michael Bradshaw

Global Applications, Data and AI Practice Leader

At Kyndryl, we experienced this firsthand as we worked to build a lean, modern and harmonized IT estate. Upon becoming an independent company, we inherited dozens of siloed data solutions and over a thousand applications — an environment in which it would have been overwhelmingly difficult to deploy AI at scale and see business-wide benefits. To build a solid foundation for the future, we radically simplified our data and systems, creating a streamlined, fit-for-purpose IT estate in record time.

We succeeded because of our people, and the lessons we learned in driving change — with a top-down approach to leadership, an organization-wide focus on transforming not just our technology but our business and a culture that embraced transformation — extend to AI readiness. CEOs can play a vital role in aligning AI strategy across an organization as technology leaders keep energy directed toward business outcomes. An enterprise-wide perspective that brings leaders together can help companies overcome silos as they stitch AI capabilities across functions. And creating a culture that empowers people to adapt to new ways of working can enable companies to unleash real value from their investments.

For now, this value may be most apparent in the everyday changes witnessed in the workplace. By helping us generate, understand and act on valuable information — and do so faster than ever before — AI makes us better versions of ourselves. At its best, AI can be a force multiplier, providing powerful insights that change how we work, translating to improved business outcomes beyond cost savings.

At Kyndryl, we’re committed to helping customers tap into these possibilities. We recognize that AI readiness involves constructing strong data foundations, modernizing legacy environments, bolstering operational security, establishing trust in AI systems, implementing technology with the end-user in mind and more. One of the best parts of my job is seeing how our trusted relationships with a broad ecosystem of partners enables us to deliver unique and customized AI solutions that help businesses solve these challenges every day.

In the coming years, in line with Moore’s Law and perhaps even outpacing it, AI will only become more powerful and efficient, shaping our world in ways we haven’t yet imagined. With these dramatic improvements on the horizon, leaders have no time to waste in testing use cases, scaling efforts and seizing opportunities to drive the change that will prepare their enterprises for whatever the future brings.