Good brakes are what let you drive fast with AI.

Good brakes are what let you drive fast with AI. That is one of the clearest messages in Boston Consulting Group (BCG)’s latest research.

Almost half of companies are now generating value from AI. The real story is the growing gap between those that are merely adopting it and those turning it into business impact.

Strategic clarity + applied AI = transformative impact.

Companies that excel at both generate 5X more AI value than those that do not.

A few highlights that caught my eye:

→ AI spending has more than tripled in two years

→ 80% of that spending now sits OUTSIDE the IT department

→ Agents drive 22% of AI value today. BCG expects that to reach 39% by 2030

→ Only 1 in 20 companies has the full set of controls needed to scale agents

→ The top 7.5% of companies generate 2.4X the top-line growth of companies in the bottom half

For me, three points matter most:

1/ Concentration

The leading companies focus AI on a few workflows that matter most to their economics AND redesign the organisation around them. They do not treat AI as a collection of pilots. They measure it in business terms: 95% of future-built companies track AI through P&L impact or business KPIs.

2/ Controls

Companies with strong controls for AI agents generate 3X more value from them than companies with limited controls. Governance is not separate from AI value creation. Good brakes are what let you drive fast.

3/ Redesign

BCG identifies three capabilities: 1) AI-first operating model, 2) a workforce built around humans and agents, and 3) a data and technology platform that AGENTS can use.

Zoom out.

Nine in ten leaders expect AI to create new work. Companies also expect workforce reductions of 10% to 15%. Both can be true.

The companies pulling ahead are redesigning jobs around what humans and agents can do together: where people apply judgment, manage relationships, handle exceptions, and remain accountable; where agents execute, coordinate, and accelerate work.

You can already see this in hiring data reported by CNBC:

→ 140K AI-related job postings at JPMorganChase, Citi, Capital One (up 49% since last year)

→ A 1,721% increase in postings seeking agent-orchestration skills

→ Governance-related skills appeared in more than 16,000 job postings, nearly twice the number related to training, deploying, and operating AI models

2023: “Can we use an LLM?”

2026: “How do we design, govern, and measure a workforce of agents?”

The bottomline is: Don't add AI to every task. Choose the workflows that matter most, rebuild them for a human-and-agent workforce, and put in place the controls that allow that redesign to scale.

AI’s call to action is reinvention.

Until next time,

Ram

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Insights from BCG: https://lnkd.in/gKn7u-rN

Insights from CNBC: https://lnkd.in/gJZ_NSQc

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Ram Srinivasan

MIT Alum | Author, The Conscious Machine | Global Future of Work and AI Adoption Leader published in Business Insider, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, MIT Executive Viewpoints and more.

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Disclaimer:

Ram Srinivasan currently serves as an Innovation Strategist and Transformation Leader, authoring groundbreaking works including "The Conscious Machine" and the upcoming "The Substrate Shift."

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