The companies that are truly innovating with AI are doing something very different from their peers: They are conceptualizing and developing AI capabilities that reshape their products, services, core business processes, and organizational systems.
These leading companies—many profiled in the second edition of our seminal book, Rewired: How Leading Companies Win with Technology and AI—are already realizing game-changing results and creating competitive advantage. Their advantage, however, does not come from the tech they use; those tools are broadly available. Their advantage comes from how—and how fast—they apply technology to solving real business problems at scale.
We summarize our perspective on how they do it in this AI transformation manifesto. This declaration captures the defining themes that separate the companies that are successfully transforming their business with tech and AI from those that are not. And while there’s no question that agentic AI is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, the themes are enduring because they focus on what it takes to harness technology to drive business goals.
These themes are extracted from the six capabilities that are featured in Rewired: strategic road mapping, talent, operating model, tech, data, and adoption and scaling. In calling these themes out, we are highlighting what our work on hundreds of large-scale tech and AI transformations has shown really makes a difference. These themes should become a checklist for change and operate as guideposts along your transformation journey to value.
- 1. Technology alone doesn’t create advantage; enduring capabilities do. Who are the early winners at AI? The same companies that have been winning before by building capabilities that allow them to harness any technology effectively. We call them Rewired companies. When these new capabilities are built—and they take time to build—the company accelerates its business transformation with technology and outperforms its peers. The capabilities become the competitive advantage.Are you building enduring capabilities for the journey, or merely delivering one-off solutions?
- 2. Economic leverage points are your best focal points. Any business model has a few key economic leverage points that provide the biggest impact when improved with AI. In mining, for example, process yield and throughput is a key economic leverage point, and that’s where Freeport-McMoRan achieved game-changing impact. In automotive, supply chain integration is a key leverage point, and that’s where Toyota had its AI breakthrough. Most companies have long lists of use cases. Successful ones focus on achieving deep business transformation in the few areas that matter strategically. That’s where they double down to build AI systems.Have you disproportionately focused your AI efforts on your economic leverage points?
- 3. If the value you’re creating doesn’t move the business, you’re getting it wrong. We studied the impact achieved by 20 companies across industries that have proved themselves to be leaders in AI. On average, their technology- and AI-driven business transformations delivered a 20 percent EBITDA uplift, reached breakeven in one to two years, and generated $3 of incremental EBITDA for every $1 invested. These companies concentrated their efforts on one to three business domains, reinventing them with AI. That required creative problem-solving, coordinated use of tech and nontech levers, maniacal focus on the customers/users, and clear accountability for the business KPIs that mattered most. They made substantial, stage-gated investments and still continue to improve and stay ahead.
- Will your business transformation plan result in game-changing value, or will the wins be incremental?
- 4. Building the tech and AI muscle of your senior business leaders should be a top priority. We don’t have a single success story where senior business leaders were not in the driver’s seat. IT leaders can support the transformation, of course, but it’s business leaders who need to drive it. At leading companies, they actively own the tech agenda—from defining how the business will be reimagined with technology to steering solution development to ensuring value delivery. These leaders, usually one or three levels below the CEO, combine deep business domain expertise with technology, data, and AI know-how that makes them formidable business transformers. They are conceptualizing, building, and running AI systems that power key aspects of the business.
Read the full article by Alex Singla; Alexander Sukharevsky, Kate Smaje and Eric Lamarre
