Enterprise AI adoption is outpacing workforce readiness, according to new research from Kyndryl that found only 23% of leaders believe their organizations are prepared to support AI at scale.
The report discovered that 57% of organizations have broadly deployed AI or embedded it into core business processes, while 77% have scaled generative AI across multiple functions. According to Kyndryl’s 2026 People Readiness Report, a smaller set of participating organizations that are redesigning roles, investing in workforce readiness, and implementing formal change-management programs are more likely to achieve revenue growth and innovative outcomes from AI than their peers.
“This is a critical moment for global enterprises as they race to adopt AI, redesign workflows, and pursue innovation, yet they’re finding that their greatest assets—their people—need more attention,” Kim Basile, CIO at Kyndryl, said in a statement. “The data shows that the organizations investing in people—whether it’s rethinking roles and workflows, dedicating resources for upskilling and retraining, or guiding employees through change—are experiencing positive outcomes at a much higher rate.”
Enterprises organizations are sharing how prepared for AI they are across their infrastructure, organization, and workforce. Some highlights from the report include:
- 35% say their IT infrastructure is ready for AI.
- 25% say their organizational culture is ready.
- 23% say governance and compliance functions are ready.
- 36% expect workforce skills and role structures to be fully AI-ready by year-end.
- 33% expect organizational culture and change-management capabilities to be fully AI-ready by year-end.
The report, based on a survey of 1,100 business and technology leaders across eight countries, suggests workforce readiness is becoming a key factor for success as organizations move beyond AI experimentation and focus on measurable business outcomes.
In its research, Kyndryl identified a small subset of organizations—just 9% of respondents—that it calls “pacesetters.” These companies invested in workforce readiness while redesigning jobs and workflows around AI. They were 1.5 times more likely to report AI-driven revenue growth and 1.6 times more likely to achieve innovation-related outcomes than other respondents.
Nearly 80% of respondents said the pace of AI adoption is likely to outstrip their organization’s ability to adapt its workforce, governance structures, and operating model. As Kyndryl notes in the report, most leaders believe addressing those challenges “will prove more arduous than those involving code and compute.”
Organizations are also struggling to achieve the outcomes they most want from AI. Improving operational efficiency and productivity remains the top AI priority for enterprises, cited by 34% of respondents, followed by IT modernization (27%), risk management and security improvements (25%), business innovation (25%), and AI-driven revenue growth (24%).
However, only 32% of organizations reported achieving even one of their top two desired outcomes, and just 11% said they had achieved both. Improved operational efficiency and productivity was the most frequently reported AI outcome, cited by 38% of respondents. By comparison, organizations were far less likely to report outcomes such as AI-driven revenue growth (14%), IT modernization (13%), or innovation in new products and services (11%).
Many organizations attribute those challenges to workforce and skills issues. Nearly half of respondents (49%) identified skills and talent gaps as a major obstacle to executing their AI strategies, second only to cybersecurity concerns (52%). In addition, 52% said it has become more difficult over the past year to find employees with the skills needed to support their organization’s AI strategy.
The Kyndryl report found that 94% of respondents believe AI will make upskilling current employees more effective than hiring external talent.
“AI’s ability to reshape work is challenging organizations to reshape their workforce more rapidly than ever before,” Mark Paulek, Kyndryl’s chief human resources officer, said in a statement. “The leaders pulling ahead are aligning skills, roles, and decision-making with how work is actually changing.”