Author : Jin Li, Feng Zhu and Pascal Hua
Summary: Most firms struggle to capture real value from AI not because the technology fails—but because their people, processes, and politics do. Survey data and case studies demonstrate how fear of replacement, rigid workflows, and entrenched power structures quietly derail AI initiatives, even in companies with advanced tools. Organizations that redesign incentives, workflows, and governance to align human behavior with technological capability don’t just adopt AI—they transform how value is created across the enterprise.
The hype around AI has dominated conversations among top executives. Yet most organizations are still struggling to generate meaningful returns from their AI initiatives.
To explore these challenges in greater depth, we conducted extensive research, combining a survey of over 100 C-suite executives with more than two dozen interviews across industries. The survey revealed that 45% of executives found the ROI of AI adoption to be below expectations, while only 10% reported results exceeding expectations. It also highlighted that the most significant barriers are organizational, rather than technical. Building on these findings, we identify a set of interlocking obstacles rooted in three areas: people, processes, and politics.
In this article, we explore these interlocking obstacles and look at how companies are addressing them.