Links to the report from IBM below.
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Key summary:
- The dawn of the smarter enterprise - Leaders are recognizing that the future of business is a hybrid of people and software-a lot of software. Every process that can be automated will be. Every role will be enhanced by intelligent systems that learn and adapt. Most business leaders-57%-now say their competitive advantage will come primarily from the sophistication of their AI models by 2030. While people will remain essential, organizations will need to build differentiating technology for even the best teams to deliver an edge in an AI-first world.
- Competitive pressure will make big bets non-negotiable - Winning in 2030 will depend on a combination of creativity, confidence, and speed: 55% of executives say competitive advantage in 2030 will depend more on speed of execution than making perfect decision-making. These leaders know they'll have to make bigger bets faster-with less complete information at their disposal. Organizations that have embraced the unknown expect to accelerate much faster than their peers. IBM's analysis shows that organizations leaning into AI-first operations anticipate 70% greater improvement in productivity, 74% greater reductions in process cycle times, and 67% greater improvement in project delivery times than their peers by 2030.
- Today's productivity gains will fund tomorrow's industry transformation - Today's AI investments are driving unprecedented productivity gains. And these efficiency improvements are just the opening act. A two-phase revolution has already begun. More than half (53%) of executives say AI will have transformed business models in their industry by 2030. Phase one, focused on using AI to eliminate waste, accelerate processes, and amplify human capability within existing business models, is already well underway. Executives expect AI to increase productivity by 42% by 2030-and 67% of executives expect to have captured most of their AI-enabled productivity gains by then. Phase two leverages the resources freed up from those productivity gains to reimagine entire industry verticals-and the first to get it right could earn an unassailable advantage. Already, 70% of executives say they're looking to use the value creation from AI to fund investment and growth across the organization.
- The best AI will be one-of-a-kind. Your kind - Tomorrow's competitive advantage won't come from using the largest AI models. It will come from using AI in a way that no one ever has before. When every organization has access to the same large foundation models, the differentiating factor becomes how well these different models are combined and customized-and how your unique enterprise data is incorporated to achieve targeted business objectives. By 2030, 82% of executives expect their AI capabilities to be multi-model-and 72% expect small language models (SLMs) to become more prominent than large language models (LLMs) in their organizations in the same timeframe. Directing a dynamic AI model portfolio isn't the same as overseeing traditional software deployments or even cloud migrations. Because these models learn, adapt, and evolve in real time, this type of portfolio needs constant tuning, ethical oversight, and strategic direction. Leaders need a skillset that is part technologist, part strategist, part behavioral scientist. No wonder 74% of the executives we surveyed say AI will redefine leadership roles across the enterprise by 2030. Two-thirds say AI will create entirely new leadership roles, with 68% expecting to have a Chief AI Officer.
- AI won't do all your thinking for you - Today's job roles will be unrecognizable in the enterprise of the future. Already the half-life of human skills is shrinking: 67% of executives in our research say job roles are becoming shorter-lived and 57% expect most current employee skills to become obsolete by 2030. As pre-AI workflows become obsolete, employees will need to envision entirely new functions that can manage AI-first operations. Instead of teams of people who use AI to augment individual job roles, they need orchestrators with new skills who can manage AI across multiple domains and integrate insights that span traditional departmental boundaries. Roughly two-thirds of executives say agentic AI will play a significant role in finance, sales, marketing, IT, supply chain, and research and development by 2030. These agents generally come in one of two forms: personal agents that empower employees to work smarter and enterprise agents that optimize end-to-end workflows.
- Quantum will cause the next seismic shift - As business leaders focus on staying ahead of the AI curve, they're at risk of missing a seismic shift in quantum computing-a miscalculation that could leave even the most adaptive enterprises exposed. While 59% of executives say quantum-enabled AI will transform their industry by 2030, only 27% expect to be using quantum computing by then. This gap between quantum's potential and industry preparation creates massive opportunity for the organizations that act decisively today.
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Todor Kostov
Director
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