Is your company ready for GenAI? The answer involves more than just tech

Fast Company

17-07-2025

The initial wave of excitement around generative AI (GenAI) has evolved into an intentional focus on how to institutionalize the technology and create long-term value. While most business leaders may accept the need to incorporate GenAI more deeply into their business, many remain skeptical of the effort and investment involved, wondering if it will add to sustainable performance.
This begs the question: Are companies truly ready for GenAI?
The truth is the GenAI journey doesn't start with a platform; it starts with a decision from leadership and across the organization. Leaders need to avoid getting swept up in the frenzy around them, take a step back, and survey the situation. With distance, leaders can stop obsessing about what's possible with GenAI and start focusing on how to make it probable.
Over the past few years, GenAI has captivated boardrooms. According to Gartner, worldwide GenAI spending is expected to total $644 billion in 2025, an increase of 76.4% from 2024. And it's easy to see why. GenAI can produce content in seconds, enabling companies to boost operational efficiency, unlock data insights that can vastly improve decision-making, and enhance customer engagement. But while everyone is talking about solutions, models, and tech stacks, few are spending time evaluating if their company is prepared for that sort of change.
Leaders who drive GenAI implementations know that adoption starts by rewiring an organization's mindset, shifting the priority from acquiring technology toward scaling its use. This requires a commitment to change management and mobilization, especially in two key areas: People and process.
1. PEOPLE: C-SUITE LEADERSHIP IS CRITICAL
As with most transformations, it takes a top-down approach to accelerate impact. A survey by management consultancy Kearney shows that nearly 90% of companies that have successfully integrated GenAI credit senior leadership's understanding of the technology. Other factors contributing to GenAI readiness are cultural support of change (74%) and the allocation of sufficient resources, including time, money, and people (70%).
This study underscores the fact that GenAI's success starts with the CEO setting the mandate, the CIO delivering the data infrastructure, and functional leaders driving the transformation. To facilitate this unified top-down push, CEOs must act as both collaborator and catalyst.
According to PwC, a CEO's main function is to keep the organization's eyes on the prize 'amid the froth that accompanies the introduction of every major technology' and apply a systematic approach to implementing GenAI. This includes investment in data readiness, integration into technology platforms and workflows, and effective programs to build workforce skills. These foundational moves help organizations seize bigger opportunities, from functional transformation to business model shifts.
2. PROCESS: PRIORITIZE CHANGE MANAGEMENT OVER PILOTS
While GenAI proofs of concept are everywhere, very few have been able to scale. Analysts predict one-third will be abandoned after the POC stage by 2025. Scaling requires aligning GenAI use cases with business value and prioritizing change management.
In the first nationally representative U.S. survey of GenAI adoption conducted in late 2024, the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank found that only 28% of workers used GenAI to some degree. But outside of work, the GenAI chatbot, ChatGPT, skyrocketed to 100 million active monthly users two months after its launch.
So, where's the disconnect between personal life and work life? KPMG offers some perspective. GenAI requires people to work as 'peers' of the technology, asking the tools what they want done, and then explaining how. This requires a change in work habits, which could expose biases such as resistance to change or job security fears. Instead of issuing blanket mandates, KPMG suggests developing a change program, using behavioral tactics like:
• Offering exclusive training to tap into the appeal of limited availability.
• Sharing case studies and success stories to create a bandwagon effect.
• Demonstrating how GenAI can help careers, creating monetary value.
Change management isn't a checkbox; it's a muscle. To exercise that muscle, companies need to revamp operations, redefine roles, and rethink value chains. Otherwise, they risk building smart tech that nobody uses.
All the best-laid plans and intentions can fall short if two key elements are not addressed: Data quality and continuous learning.
Data is the lifeblood of all AI, and GenAI's quality is only as good as a company's data quality. Low-quality data can lead to problems like transaction processing issues in operational systems and inaccurate results in analytics applications. Faulty data needs to be identified and fixed to ensure business users are working with good information. Improving data is a cultural discipline, and if people and processes are in place, better data should follow.
And while it's become popular to spin up an 'AI CoE' (AI Center of Excellence) or appoint a 'chief AI officer,' these tactics often lack real influence. Instead of isolating GenAI adoption to a confined function/role, the goal should be to increase knowledge and comfort levels across the board.
Tsedal Neeley, a Harvard Business School professor, recommends companies aim for a level of 30% competence in a variety of technological topics—something she calls a 'foundational fluency.' With this level of fluency, leaders can begin to 'connect the dots' and spot GenAI opportunities and assess risks more effectively.
NOW IS THE TIME TO COMMIT TO CHANGE
The struggles in scaling GenAI show how difficult it is to determine GenAI readiness. But readiness isn't binary—it's a progression. Instead of asking, 'Can we deploy GenAI?' consider questions like:
• Are we aligned to change with GenAI?
• Are we prepared to lead with GenAI?
• Are we willing to transform with GenAI?
Because it's not about when you implement new technology, it's about when you commit to change. By focusing on people and processes, companies can move beyond the hype and build GenAI capabilities that are robust and ready to scale.
So, is your company ready for GenAI? The time to find out is now.