The Readiness Tipping Point
- Participants 3,700 business leaders across 21 countries
- Key insight 87% think AI will "completely" transform roles in the next year
- Key stat 65% changed cloud strategies in response to new geopolitical pressures
- Key insight 61% feel more pressure to prove ROI on AI investments
- Key stat 57% say their company’s innovation is delayed by issues in the tech stack
The tipping point
Today’s global enterprises are at a readiness tipping point
AI and geopolitical uncertainty are upending business and tech conventions.
Organizations are at a crucial tipping point. Tip one way, and they can turn potential roadblocks into differentiators—navigating patchwork regulations with agility, scaling AI pilots for impact, and inspiring employees with a clear vision for the future that builds trust. Tip the other way and risk falling behind.
New research from Kyndryl combines the insights of 3,700 leaders from 21 countries with data from Kyndryl Bridge, the company’s AI-powered business platform, to show the real-world IT and workforce strategies that get businesses ready for the future.
87%
think AI will “completely” transform roles and responsibilities at their organizations in the next year.
65%
have made changes to their cloud strategies in response to new geopolitical pressures.
Only 31%
feel ready across external risks (+2 points from 2024).
Mapping risks and readiness
Leaders across geographies feel unprepared for future risks, as new challenges expose readiness gaps
Scale the pilots
Investments in AI are up—as are expectations—but organizations still aren’t seeing transformational change
More than two-thirds (68%) are investing "heavily" in some form of AI, whether that’s agentic, generative, or machine learning, and they have diverse goals for their pilot projects, from increased revenue to customer satisfaction to operational efficiency and more. They also struggle to align business, technology, and finance teams on the overall vision.
The top three challenges to scale AI projects are complexity integrating with existing IT, talent shortages, and regulation constraints.
54%
report positive ROI on their AI investments (+12 points vs. 2024).
74%
of CEOs say they are not aligned with their CFO on long-term value of technology investments.
57%
say their company’s innovation is often delayed by foundational issues in the technology stack.
Pressure to scale
Across industries, a similar story: innovation abundant, but scaling is a bottleneck
Every sector sees change coming, yet most are slowed by legacy systems, security gaps, and cultural inertia. Telecom and tech report an abundance of pilot projects likely to stall on execution. Retail’s expectations appear more modest, likely due to fewer but more-targeted use cases. Heavily regulated industries including finance and see more obstacles to scale.
Navigate with agility
Increasingly fragmented geopolitics and regulations are complicating cloud, data and vendor decisions.
With geopolitical pressures intensifying, leaders are being forced to re-think where and how their data is stored, processed, accessed, and secured.
Widespread cloud adoption unlocked tremendous value and ability to scale. Leaders are now reporting new challenges from past IT decisions and a fast-changing regulatory landscape. Organizations are racing to shore up their cloud and data strategies to meet the needs of a more regulated, more divided world.
83%
say emerging data sovereignty and repatriation regulations have become more important in IT decision making the past 12 months.
70%
of CEOs report they got to their current cloud environment by accident, rather than by design.
65%
have already made changes to their cloud strategies in the in response to new geopolitical pressures.
Data sovereignty
Countries report diverse levels of risk with storing and managing data in global cloud environments
Readiness drivers
An adaptable organizational culture, clear leadership vision, and investments in innovation are clear drivers of readiness, across all countries and sizes of businesses
The most-ready organizations—pacesetters—pair strong vision with the investment and adaptability to act on it. Followers trail them, followed by the laggards. Pacesetters are 32 points less likely to say their tech stack delays innovation, and 20 points less likely to have experienced a cyber-related outage in the past year vs. the laggards.
As organizations advance, their challenges evolve. Pacesetters grapple with the complexity of integrating and scaling advanced technologies—a sign of maturity rather than weakness.
-31pts
Pacesetters are 31 points less likely to say their innovation efforts stall after proofs-of-concept.
+10pts
Pacesetters are 23 points more likely to say they're getting positive ROI on AI or generative AI.
+30pts
Pacesetters are 30 points more likely to say their cloud infrastructure lets them adapt quickly to changing regulatory environments.
Methodology
Combining leader insights with IT data from today’s global enterprises
The Kyndryl Readiness Report is based on a global survey of 3,700 senior leaders across 21 countries. Half of respondents are C-suite executives; half are senior directors and business unit leaders who influence technology investment decisions. The sample is evenly split between business and technology leaders. Half of respondents represent companies with $1 billion or more in annual revenue. The survey was conducted by Edelman DXI on behalf of Kyndryl via online survey and telephone interview between June 20 and August 15, 2025.
Kyndryl Bridge uses operational data, IP and embedded AI to provide observability across an enterprise's entire IT estate. More than 1,200 enterprises are on the platform, which delivers 12 million AI-driven insights monthly. Data in this report represents metrics from August 2025 or by a three-month rolling average from June through August 2025.
More perspectives on readiness from Kyndryl
The five principles of AI proof-of-concept success
Ismail Amla, Senior Vice President, Kyndryl Consult, on concrete steps organizations can take to get innovation right from the start.
Is your workforce ready for AI?
Kyndryl’s People Readiness Report explores how a small group of organizations have aligned their tech and talent for real-world outcomes.
In an uncertain world, enterprises are repatriating their data
Why some enterprises are beginning to remove their data from public cloud providers and return it to data centers, cloud providers in the region or their own servers.
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