Companies face skills gap as AI adoption outpaces infrastructure readiness

The news: Although 77% of company leaders say quick generative AI (genAI) adoption is key to competing, just 25% think their IT infrastructure is ready.

• Sixty-four percent of CEOs say AI success depends more on adoption than the tech itself, per IBM’s 5 Trends for 2025 study.
• However, 47% say their workers lack the knowledge and skills needed to implement and scale AI.

Evolving focus: Companies are no longer just testing the waters with AI adoption, and the era of experimentation is giving way to optimization and innovation.

• Just 6% of organizations will still be experimenting with AI in 2025, down from 30% last year.
• And 85% of executives expect AI to help innovate their business models. About four-fifths say it will improve product differentiation, trust, and quality.

Pumping the brakes: Although executives are ready to push genAI forward, the tech itself may not keep growing apace.

• The pool of public training data for genAI models is shrinking, and those resources will be burned through sometime between 2026 and 2032, per Epoch AI.
• Enterprises themselves may not have enough data for genAI: Only 21% of executives strongly agreed that they have the data needed to scale across the enterprise, per IBM.

Agentic assistance: AI agents are redefining productivity and workflows, but operational structure and employee skills may not be ready.

• Less than half of executives say their organization has a formal plan or system to integrate AI assistants and agents into daily workflows.
• Another 77% say genAI will enable autonomous decisions by 2026. The volume of decision-making by digital assistants is expected to grow 21% in the next two years.

What about workers? Executives and employees are split on how AI will change the future of work and whether the technology will replace or bolster human jobs.

• Forty-eight percent of US adults believe AI advances will reduce job numbers, per YouGov.
• But 87% of executives expect jobs to be augmented rather than replaced by genAI, per IBM.

Our take: Leaders should use AI’s slowing growth to refocus their initiatives, set safety standards, and improve employee training. Without clear guidelines and adequate training for workers, companies can risk undermining productivity and wasting money on initiatives.

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