Exclusive: What separates genAI pacesetters from the pack
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Nearly 4 in 5 of the companies diving headlong into generative AI are seeing a positive return on their investment, according to results of a new ServiceNow study, shared first with Axios.
Why it matters: Businesses are under tremendous pressure to demonstrate they aren't missing out on the AI revolution, but many companies have struggled to go from experiments into full-scale use of the technology.
By the numbers: In its inaugural AI Maturity Index, ServiceNow surveyed nearly 4,500 respondents from 21 countries and found that most companies are still in the early stages of adopting generative AI.
- The study assigned maturity scores between 1 and 100. The average score was 44 and the highest score was just 71. Only about 1 in 6 companies scored higher than 50.
- Companies, on average, are spending about 9% of revenue on technology, with 15% of that going to AI.
- Looking ahead, 81% of companies say they plan to increase AI spending next year, with a quarter of companies planning to boost spending between 10% and 14% and a similar number planning to increase spending between 5% and 9%.
- What separated the companies ServiceNow identified as "pacesetters" was that they are looking not only at the technology options, but also at how to redefine how they do business, even if they aren't there yet.
What they're saying: "There is no substitute for leadership," ServiceNow chief customer officer Chris Bedi told Axios. "You have to be able to get up in front of your team and say, 'Here's how your roles are going to evolve in an AI-first world.'"
- Organizations need to be operating in two modes with AI, Bedi said. "Mode one — which is largely what everyone's doing today — is incremental improvements to existing ways of working," he said.
- "Mode two is harder. It's saying, 'If we were to assume the models are good enough, and AI was pervasive, how would we redesign these departments, these jobs, the organization, the enterprise, from scratch?' It's a much harder intellectual exercise."
- The investments in mode one, though, will pay off as companies look to make more substantive changes to business processes down the road.
Yes, but: Being a pacesetter today doesn't have to mean developing your own AI models or redesigning business processes from scratch.
- Companies can gain a boost by fully making use of investments that existing software makers have already made in AI — folks like Salesforce, Microsoft, Google and Adobe.
- "The majority of the pacesetters are using AI that's inbuilt in tech platforms," Bedi said.
- "AI is inevitable. It is one of those moments and tech transformations. It's a 'when', not an 'if.'"
Between the lines: While acknowledging there is fear among workers that AI could replace their jobs, Bedi said the right response is clarity, not downplaying the technology.
- "It's actually I think something the workforce is hungry for," Bedi said. "They all read the headlines everywhere. It can create anxiety actually, if the organization's not moving on AI because [workers] could feel like they're falling behind compared to maybe some of their friends that are at another company."
