While the AI genie is out of the bottle for organisations for all sizes, only 13% of businesses are fully prepared for it, with those ready as much as four times more likely to move pilots into production and 50% more likely to see measurable value, according to a study by Cisco.
The data comes from the Cisco AI readiness index 2025, a global study, now in its third year, based on a double-blind survey of 8,000 senior IT and business leaders responsible for AI strategy at organisations with more than 500 employees across 26 industries across 30 markets.
Cisco added that the combination of foresight and foundation is delivering real, tangible results at a time when two major forces are starting to reshape the landscape: AI agents, which raise the bar for scale, security and governance; and AI infrastructure debt, the early warning signs of hidden bottlenecks that threaten to erode long-term value.
Regarding AI agents, the survey found ambition was outpacing readiness. Overall, 83% of organisations planned to deploy AI agents, and nearly 40% expected them to work alongside employees within a year. But the study discovered that, for majority of these companies, AI agents were exposing weak foundations – that is, systems that can barely handle reactive, task-based AI, let alone AI systems that act autonomously and learn continuously. More than half (54%) of respondents said their networks can’t scale for complexity or data volume and just 15% describe their networks as flexible or adaptable.
AI infrastructure debt was called the modern evolution of technical and digital debt that once held back digital transformation. Moreover, the survey regarded it as “the silent accumulation of compromises, deferred upgrades, and underfunded architecture that erodes the value of AI over time”. Some 62% of firms expect workloads to rise by over 30% within three years, 64% struggle to centralise data, only 26% said that they have robust GPU capacity and fewer than one in three could detect or prevent AI-specific threats.
Among the topline results from the report were that “small but consistent” group of companies surveyed – falling into the category of pacesetters, and making up about 13% of organisations for the past three years – were outperforming their peers across every measure of AI value.
Cisco noted that the pacesetters’ sustained advantage indicated a new form of resilience: a disciplined, system-level approach that balances strategic drivers with the data and network infrastructure needed to keep pace with AI’s accelerating evolution. It added that such firms were already architecting for the future, with 98% designing their networks for the growth, scale and complexity of AI, compared with 46% overall.
The research outlined a pattern among companies delivering real returns: they make AI part of the business, not a side project; they build infrastructure that’s ready to grow; they move pilots into production; they measure what matters; and they turn security into strength.
Virtually all pacesetters (99%) were found to have a defined AI roadmap (vs 58% overall), and 91% (vs 35%) had a change-management plan. Budgets match intent, with 79% making AI the top investment priority (vs 24%), and 96% with short- and long-term funding strategies (vs 43%). The study noted that such firms architect for the always-on AI era. Some 71% of pacesetters said that their networks were fully flexible and can scale instantly for any AI project (vs 15% overall), and 77% are investing in new datacentre capacity within the next 12 months (vs 43%).
Just over three-fifths had what was defined as a “mature, repeatable” innovation process for generating and scaling AI use cases (versus 13% overall), and three-quarters (77%) had already finalised those use cases (versus 18%). Some 95% track the impact of their AI investments – three times higher than others – and 71% were confident their use cases will generate new revenue streams, more than double the overall average. Meanwhile, 87% were highly aware of AI-specific threats (versus 42% overall), 62% integrated AI into their security and identity systems (versus 29%), and 75% were fully equipped to control and secure AI agents (versus 31%).
The result of this approach, said Cisco, was that pacesetters achieve more widespread results than their peers because of this approach, with 90% reporting gains in profitability, productivity and innovation, compared with around 60% overall.
Commenting on the results from the survey, Cisco president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel stated that the AI readiness index makes one thing clear: AI doesn’t fail – readiness fails, adding: “The most AI-ready organisations – the pacesetters from our research – prove it. They’re four times more likely to move pilots into production and 50% more likely to realise measurable value. So, with more than 80% of organisations we surveyed about to deploy AI agents, these new findings confirm readiness, discipline and action are key to unlocking value.”
