Highlights
Clients are pragmatic about AI. We see the enterprise challenge moving at two speeds. The first is AI for technology. This means embedding intelligence into software engineering and IT operations, including agentic service management that reduces manual effort and moves teams toward more autonomous operations.
Second is AI for business. Contextual knowledge moves AI from a decision aid to a co-architect across supply chains and value chains. With 65 per cent of companies citing human intuition and creativity as their strategic edge, success depends on empowering people and redesigning roles, rather than simply deploying tools.
We are mirroring this in our own journey to become the world’s largest AI-led technology services company – investing in talent, infrastructure and ecosystem partnerships to ensure our transformation delivers maximum customer value.
CEOs often ask me how to modernise legacy systems that were not built for what comes next.
Becoming AI-first requires a modern tech stack. We focus on mainframe exits and application rationalisation so heritage systems do not block innovation. We also drive efficiency to release capital for modernisation.
Research conducted with AWS found that while 75 per cent of manufacturers expect AI to be a primary margin driver by 2026, only 21 per cent describe themselves as fully AI-ready. Modernisation is the bridge that sustains the present, while transformation builds the future.
In Europe, sovereign cloud has matured beyond compliance into supply chain security.
Sovereignty is an extension of control. If an enterprise depends on global hardware, software, or operations, it remains exposed to external shocks.
Designing for data residency and regional jurisdiction reduces strategic dependency and strengthens continuity. The World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 reports that 66 percent of organisations have adapted their technology strategies due to geopolitical volatility.
Sovereignty is no longer only about where data sits. It is about which workloads require residency, what needs local control, and how to turn compliance into resilience.
Cyber risk is evolving just as quickly. The Forum report notes that 94 percent of executives see AI as the most significant driver of change in cyber risk.
Ransomware remains important, but leadership attention is shifting toward cyber-enabled fraud and AI-driven social engineering, with 77 per cent reporting an increase in these areas. A human-only defence model is obsolete. The ecosystem dimension compounds the risk, with 65 per cent of large organisations citing third-party and supply chain vulnerabilities as their greatest resilience challenge.
The response must move from defence to resilience. Security has to be designed into applications and operating models, with rapid detection, containment, and recovery. AI can help teams prioritise signals, anticipate likely attack paths, and accelerate response.
For a perpetually adaptive enterprise, sustainability is a core outcome, not a separate workstream. Moving from ambition to action requires a clear net-zero strategy grounded in accurate measurement and reporting, and extended across the supply chain.
Through our Pace Ports and Net Zero consulting, we help clients translate sustainability goals into operational reality, address Scope 3 complexity, and improve transparency.
Our own science-based commitment to Net Zero by 2030 reflects this approach, aligning technology with purpose to turn environmental mandates into a business advantage.
When clients ask me how to become faster and more efficient, the answer is structural optimisation. Consolidating infrastructure, applications, and vendors reduces cost and complexity, but the bigger lever is operating-model redesign. We are moving from meetings designed for discussion to environments designed for co-creation and execution.
To support better decisions at speed, we have introduced Intelligence Choice Architecture, informed by collaborative research with MIT. It combines generative and predictive AI to generate options, identify missing information, and test likely outcomes. This shifts AI from a back-office tool to a boardroom partner compressing strategy cycles from months to days.
The old pattern of disruption, an event followed by recovery and stabilisation, no longer applies. European organisations operate in constant overlap: geopolitics, economics, technology, and environmental risk. In this context, the ambition cannot be to complete an AI transformation.
The objective is to embed adaptability into the business’s fabric. Progress will not come from central mandates alone, but from agility at the edge, giving teams the tools, trust, and permission to adapt in real time.
In my video series, I explored seven questions every European executive must address: how to transform with AI, modernise legacy, enable sovereign cloud, strengthen cyber resilience, stay committed to sustainability, improve speed and efficiency, and prepare for continuous adaptation.
Those who can answer these questions will be best positioned to navigate uncertainty. The organisations that thrive will implement AI responsibly, augment human judgment, and build the partnerships required to turn disruption into a durable opportunity.