By Sridhar Mantha
For over a decade, enterprises bet big on digital transformation. Cloud migration, process automation and digitised customer experiences worked. But every serious company has done this now. It is table stakes, not a competitive advantage. The real shift is towards AI-first enterprises, where intelligence is not a tool you plug in but part of how the business runs.
Most of what digital transformation delivered was workflow efficiency. Systems talked to each other, data became easier to access and manual work was reduced. What it did not fundamentally change was how decisions get made. Companies have accumulated vast amounts of data, but turning that data into faster, more effective action remains a challenge. While 88% of companies now use AI in at least one business function, a McKinsey report says only about one-third have successfully scaled it across the enterprise.
An AI-first enterprise is not defined by the number of AI tools it runs. Intelligence is built into processes, decisions and strategy from the start, rather than added later as an afterthought. Humans provide judgement while AI brings scale. Governance is not an afterthought either. Transparency, bias controls and compliance need to be built in from the beginning.
Results are already showing up. Manufacturers are cutting production downtime with predictive models. Financial firms have taken risk assessment from days to minutes. With the help of AI, one-third of companies are now building new products or changing core business processes, according to Deloitte’s State of AI in Enterprise 2026 report. The shift is therefore not simply about doing existing tasks faster, but about changing what businesses can do.
Generative AI has moved beyond analysis into content, code and decision support. Agentic AI systems can now plan and execute multi-step tasks, with one in four organisations already running pilots. While IDC and Gartner point out that cloud infrastructure underpins more than 65% of enterprise AI deployments, client expectations from global IT services firms have changed. Technology delivery alone is no longer enough. They want partners who understand their domain and can help redesign how the business actually operates.
Building AI-ready capabilities across engineering, data architecture and human-AI interaction cannot wait. Fragmented data, rising regulations and growing costs continue to trip organisations up. Most are not stuck because they lack intent; internal inertia is the real blocker. AI washing makes it worse: when adoption remains superficial, meaningful business impact never materialises. The winners will be those that connect AI investments directly to measurable business outcomes.
The next move is from AI adoption to AI-native operating models – augmentation giving way to autonomy and scattered pilots giving way to enterprise-wide deployment. AI is expected to contribute $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually to the global economy, according to the McKinsey Global Institute.
Digital transformation mattered. But it no longer sets companies apart. Those embedding intelligence into how they operate are building a real advantage. For global IT services firms, this is the moment to move beyond technology delivery and become true transformation partners. The ones that act now will lead.
The writer is CEO of Generative AI Business Services (GBS) at Happiest Minds Technologies
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect the official policy or position of Financial Express.