{"id":64425,"date":"2025-10-16T09:04:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T06:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/?p=64425"},"modified":"2025-10-16T09:04:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T06:04:47","slug":"how-a-few-companies-are-winning-big-with-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/z\/newswire\/artificial-intelligence\/64425\/how-a-few-companies-are-winning-big-with-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Few Companies Are Winning Big With AI"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u25bc Summary<\/summary>\n

– Most businesses are not achieving meaningful ROI from AI despite widespread adoption, with studies showing 95-96% seeing no major improvements.
– A small group called “Pacesetters” (13-14% of businesses) successfully use AI by prioritizing long-term strategy, infrastructure, and governance over quick gains.
– Pacesetters treat AI as a core operating system for their organization, embedding it into business operations rather than using it as a standalone tool.
– These successful companies invest early in AI roadmaps, with 99% having a plan for AI use and 87% being highly aware of AI-specific cybersecurity threats.
– Implementing AI effectively requires focusing on automating mundane business tasks and building trust in the technology, which delivers more value than flashy applications.
<\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n

A<\/mark> surprising paradox defines the current business landscape: while artificial intelligence adoption is skyrocketing, a vast majority of companies report seeing little to no financial return on their investments.<\/strong> This disconnect raises a critical question, what separates the few successful organizations from the struggling masses? New research from Cisco<\/a> provides compelling answers, identifying a distinct group of top performers it calls “Pacesetters<\/a>” who are cracking the code on AI profitability.<\/p>\n\n

The struggle to achieve a positive return on investment is widespread. Multiple studies confirm that most corporate AI initiatives are failing to deliver meaningful financial gains or operational improvements. A notable MIT<\/a> study from August revealed that a staggering 95% of business AI projects have essentially stalled<\/strong>, producing minimal impact. More recently, an Atlassian<\/a> report found that 96% of organizations have not witnessed the dramatic boosts in efficiency, innovation, or work quality they anticipated, even as individual employee usage of AI tools climbs.<\/p>\n\n

Cisco\u2019s investigation pinpointed a crucial differentiator. The small cohort of Pacesetters, consistently making up about 13-14% of surveyed companies over three years, approach AI with a fundamentally different mindset and strategy. These organizations behave like savvy, long-term investors, deliberately forgoing quick wins to build a solid foundation for sustained growth. They adopt a disciplined, system-level approach that carefully balances strategy, infrastructure, data, governance, and company culture.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

For these leaders, AI is not merely another software tool. They treat AI as a new organizational operating system<\/strong>, a core component that redefines their entire digital ecosystem rather than just a handy application for employees. This perspective demands greater ambition, requiring significant patience, meticulous attention to detail, and considerable creativity in implementation.<\/p>\n\n

The data reveals stark contrasts in preparedness. An overwhelming 99% of Pacesetters have developed a comprehensive AI roadmap<\/a><\/strong> to guide their long-term technology strategy. This compares to just 58% of other businesses. Furthermore, 87% of Pacesetters stated they are highly aware of AI-specific cybersecurity threats, versus 42% of their peers. A full 75% feel fully equipped to control and secure AI agents, a capability only 32% of other organizations claim to possess.<\/p>\n\n

Trust forms a critical part of the Pacesetters’ value equation.<\/strong> A separate study by SAS and IDC identified a lack of trust in the technology itself as a primary barrier preventing companies from achieving ROI. Pacesetters actively build and maintain this trust through rigorous governance and security measures.<\/p>\n\n

Successful AI implementation also involves a pragmatic focus on automating mundane business operations. While creating a video ad with a generative AI<\/a> model might generate buzz, investing in an AI-powered customer service tool is far more likely to deliver consistent, long-term value. This view is supported by Forrester data, which suggests the most profitable AI applications will be those working behind the scenes. A list from venture firm Andreessen Horowitz highlighted the top 50 AI startups<\/a> attracting enterprise investment, many of which are lesser-known companies providing specialized automation services rather than flashy consumer products.<\/p>\n\n

(Source: ZDNET<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A vast majority of companies are failing to see financial returns from AI investments, with studies showing most projects have stalled or underperformed despite widespread adoption. Top-performing “Pacesetters,” about 13-14% of companies, succeed by treating AI as a core organizational operating …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64424,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3247,3253,3327,3254],"tags":[12091,9882,99546,30042,10696],"entities":[7481,7217,3600,2725,817,904,1296,99548,99547,60876,4267,5832],"class_list":["post-64425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-business","category-newswire","category-technology","tag-ai-adoption","tag-ai-governance","tag-ai-pacesetters","tag-ai-roi","tag-ai-strategy","entity-atlassian","entity-august","entity-cisco","entity-copilot","entity-google","entity-microsoft","entity-mit","entity-pacesetter","entity-pacesetters","entity-three-years","entity-tuesday","entity-zdnet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/z\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/z\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/z\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/z\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/z\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/z\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/z\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/z\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/z\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/z\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64425"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitrendz.blog\/z\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entities?post=64425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}