Few companies have reached full AI maturity

Like a tween still dragging his favorite teddy bear everywhere, most autonomous enterprises are immature.

That’s according to a January report by agentic solutions company Genpact,which found only 12% of enterprises are considered “AI leaders,” which it defines as companies that are building architecture for enhanced, autonomous enterprise processes at scale; 15 % of companies are advanced, meaning they have “strong foundations in place” for autonomy, while a little over a quarter (26%) are at an early stage.

What’s keeping companies back from their AI coming of age? There are several hurdles that prevent companies from becoming true autonomous enterprises, according to the report. Technological complexity is one: 32% of non-leader respondents, for example, said integrating AI into their existing workflow was their top technology-related challenge.

Sanjeev Vohra, Genpact CTO and innovation officer, told IT Brew that integrating AI into workflows is a larger problem for companies than making sure they have quality data for AI use.

Other challenges include a hesitancy to use AI to its full potential, such as in “problem-framing and final decision-making,” and “organizational inertia,” which can translate into slow decision cycles.

What AI leaders share in common. When reflecting on common traits among AI leaders, Vohra said most had an individual in the C-suite tasked solely with investing in AI. IT Brew previously reported on the emergence of chief AI officers, though Vohra noted that companies will have different variations of this role.

“That’s where the emerging guys are falling behind,” he said, adding that companies with a higher degree of AI maturity understand the value of clean data.

“A lot of discussion is happening in terms of, how much time do you spend in cleaning versus making [data] more richer and moving the data at a faster velocity?” Vohra said.

How to overcome those pesky AI hurdles. For companies that want to mature into fully autonomous enterprises, Vohra said it may help to strengthen their change management framework. Otherwise, they might find themselves “stuck between ambition and execution.”

“The companies that are leading, they are much ahead in the change management journey,” he said.

Vohra believes it won’t be long before more companies conquer the challenges standing in their way of becoming AI leaders: “It’s going to move fast in terms of speed, maybe double the speed that happened last year, I think that is for sure.”