A new report by Nexthink warns that a lack of readiness to adopt AI could undermine organisations’ efforts to adopt the technology.
Organisations will spend $5.61 trillion on IT in 2025, with $644 billion going towards Generative AI alone. According to a new report from digital employee experience (DEX) management company Nexthink, 66% of IT decision makers say their organisation rolls out a new application, tool, or platform every month.
Despite widespread enthusiasm for the technology among companies looking to create efficiencies, cut costs, and replace human workers (in both the public and private sectors — even in the US government), Nexthink’s report warns that a “lack of employee readiness to adopt and confidently use AI could see investments go up in smoke.”
Nexthink: the Science of Productivity
Nexthink’s report, ‘The Science of Productivity: AI, Adoption, And Employee Experience’ report details the findings of a survey of 1,100 global IT decision makers. In the report, 95% of IT leaders said that they expect the upcoming wave of AI-powered digital transformation to be the most impactful and intensive seen thus far, as the latest phase (agentic AI) promises better, more independent AI solutions that can act with less human supervision.
However, the majority of IT leaders (92%) surveyed also said they believe this new era of digital transformation will increase digital friction. The abiding opinion was that fewer than half of employees (47%) have the requisite digital dexterity to adapt to technological changes. Almost nine-in-ten leaders said they expect workers to be “daunted” by new technologies like Generative AI.
“Organisations are spending trillions on IT to digitally transform, but without their people on board, it’s a fast track to failure,” said Vedant Sampath, CTO at Nexthink. “Too many employees are left grappling with unfamiliar AI tools because they lack digital dexterity: the ability to confidently embrace new technologies. IT teams, meanwhile, are flying blind without visibility into where things are going wrong. Transformation isn’t just about rolling out new tech; it’s about enabling people to use it effectively. If businesses don’t end this digital dexterity crisis, they’ll end up with cutting-edge AI tools – but a workforce that can’t use them. That’s a one-way ticket to watching AI investments go up in smoke.”
The risk of laying GenAI failure at employees’ feet
IT leaders agree that resolving this digital friction and improving the employee experience must be a priority. The risk, they say, is that failed AI adoptions eat up budgets without creating tangible value for the business.
At the same time, 42% of IT leaders admitted to Nexthink that they struggle to put an exact monetary value on AI investments, while 93% want to improve their ability to identify underperforming investments.
Regardless, IT leaders still anticipate a 43% rise in the volume of AI applications over the next three years.
The data matches up with a report by the World Economic Forum, which found earlier this year that 41% of employers intend to downsize their workforce as AI automates certain tasks.
But this rapid expansion of AI adoption is, Nexthink says, stretching IT teams to breaking point. Almost 70% admitted that there are too many users in the organisation for IT to provide adequate adoption support for everyone. Without proper guidance, application rollouts suffer, leading to lower productivity (61%), reduced collaboration (51%), increased IT support tickets (46%), and higher employee dissatisfaction (46%).
“Digital transformation lives and dies by the employee experience,” added Sampath. “If IT teams can’t effectively guide employees through adoption, businesses will never unlock the full value of their investments. DEX is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s business critical. Without it, IT leaders will struggle to measure impact, let alone maximise returns, and risk seeing their transformation efforts stall before they even get off the ground.”
- Data & AI