Artificial intelligence may be the hottest topic in boardrooms, but how prepared are companies really? Recent surveys paint a sobering picture of organizational AI literacy and readiness. Despite heavy buzz and investment, most companies, and their people, are still in the early stages of understanding and adopting AI. In this segment, we’ll break down the latest data on how well executives and employees grasp AI, how trained the workforce is, the rise (or lack) of formal AI roles, and how different regions of the world compare.
Executive Hype vs. Employee Reality
There’s a clear gap between leadership perception and on-the-ground use of AI. Employees are actually using AI tools far more than executives realize. In one late-2024 survey, workers reported embracing generative AI at three times the rate their leaders assumed, often integrating it into a third or more of their work. Over 70% of employees even believe AI will revolutionize at least 30% of their job tasks within two years.
Yet many executives remain cautious. Only 1% of companies felt they had achieved true AI “maturity” in that survey (essentially a rounding error) and 50% of business leaders say AI implementation in their organization is progressing too slowly.
In other words, while C-suites talk a big game about AI, they admit that meaningful, scaled deployment is barely underway. This dissonance shows up in attitudes: employees often want more AI and use it opportunistically, while leadership worries the organization isn’t ready to support or govern it properly.
Skills and Training Gaps Persist
A major reason for slow progress is the skill gap. Simply put, most workers (and managers) lack AI training and fluency. According to a January 2025 AI Proficiency study, only 1% of the workforce qualifies as AI experts, and fewer than 10% are even “highly competent” with AI tools.
The same report found over half of employees are AI novices (54%) still figuring out how to incorporate AI into their work, with just a small elite of practitioners or experts at the top. It’s no surprise, then, that 79% of employees say they feel overwhelmed or anxious about AI’s impact on their job. When three-quarters of your people feel unprepared or uneasy about AI, true readiness is a long way off.
Only 24% of employees have received any AI training or support from their employer so far. In other words, roughly three out of four workers have never been formally trained in using AI on the job.
It’s not for lack of interest – nearly half of employees surveyed want more formal AI training programs, seeing education as the best way to boost adoption.
The responsibility lies with organizations to catch up: remarkably, one study by BCG found only 6% of companies have even started AI upskilling programs for their workforce, despite 89% of executives ranking AI skilling a top priority.
The good news is this is beginning to change. Industry reports show a jump in companies standing up AI education initiatives – for example, the share of organizations with a “mature” AI upskilling program nearly doubled from 25% in 2024 to 43% in 2025. Still, with less than half of firms seriously investing in AI literacy for their people, a significant gap remains between AI ambitions and employees’ technical ability to realize them.
Fewer than 1% Have AI Leadership Roles
Given the above, it follows that dedicated AI roles in corporate structures are extremely rare. In fact, across the global business landscape, fewer than 1% of companies have any full-time AI leadership or staff focused on AI initiatives.
One recent McKinsey analysis found that only about 1% of companies worldwide have truly reached AI maturity – meaning they’ve integrated AI deeply enough to warrant specialized teams and strategies.
The other 99% are still in experimentation or pilot mode. Many organizations haven’t hired a single AI specialist.
Even among larger enterprises that are investing in AI, formal roles are only just emerging. Gartner estimates that as of mid-2023 about 25% of Fortune 2000 companies had appointed dedicated AI leadership at the VP level or higher, but this was essentially limited to big tech, finance, and manufacturing firms.
Outside the Fortune 2000, such roles are almost nonexistent. A late-2023 leadership survey by Russell Reynolds Associates found just 21% of companies had appointed a dedicated leader for their AI strategy (often dubbed a Head of AI or Chief AI Officer).
Only a small 9% of organizations in that survey went so far as to create a new, dedicated AI leadership role to coordinate AI efforts .
In short, the vast majority of companies – well over 90% – have no one in charge of AI full-time. Most are relying on existing IT or data leaders to juggle AI on top of other duties, or they are experimenting informally without any central coordination. This underscores a key point: if people are the heart of any AI transformation, very few companies have actually put people (talent or leaders) in place to drive that transformation. It’s a stark indicator of how nascent AI organizational readiness really is in 2025.
Regional Disparities in AI Adoption
AI readiness is not evenly distributed around the globe. Geography plays a big role in how far along companies are. Interestingly, some emerging markets are outpacing developed ones in adoption. According to IBM’s global survey data, India leads the world with 59% of companies having implemented AI in some form, closely followed by the United Arab Emirates (58%) and Singapore (53%). China also shows high uptake, with 50% of businesses deploying AI (and another 36% in exploratory stages). This suggests parts of Asia and the Middle East are eager to leapfrog via AI, perhaps aided by national digital initiatives and less legacy bureaucracy.
By contrast, adoption in Western economies lags. The global average in 2025 is around 42% of companies deploying AI, with an additional 40% still just piloting or exploring.
The United States comes in below that average – only about 33% of U.S. companies have incorporated AI so far.
Major European Union economies are similarly slow: for example, only 32% of German firms and 26% of French firms report using AI in the business.
Official statistics in the EU back this up: as of 2024 only 13.5% of EU enterprises (with 10+ employees) were utilizing AI, though that number is rising quickly year-over-year.
Even tech-forward countries like the UK (~37% adoption) are well behind the leaders in Asia. In Latin America, AI adoption is relatively stronger, about 47% of firms in that region are using AI, according to the same IBM survey, indicating emerging markets in general are hungry to capitalize on AI opportunities.
Why the disparity? One factor may be organizational support and literacy. Surveys find that outside the U.S., employees often report higher support for learning AI. In a multi-country poll, 84% of workers in countries like India, Singapore, and the UK said their organization gives them significant support to build AI skills, whereas just over half of U.S. employees said the same.
This suggests companies in parts of Asia-Pacific and Europe are pushing AI education more aggressively than American firms, potentially because they see AI as a means to catch up or leap ahead economically. Meanwhile, many U.S. and European businesses are still cautious with formal training and governance, which might be slowing broader adoption.
Bridging the Readiness Gap
All these data points to a clear conclusion: AI literacy and organizational readiness are still in their infancy across most of the corporate world.
Yes, nearly every CEO is talking about AI, and yes, billions are being invested, but true preparedness, which means having a workforce that understands AI, the technical capability to implement it, and leadership to guide it, is lagging behind the hype.
The fact that fewer than 1% of companies have a dedicated AI leader or fully mature AI programs is a reality check. For most organizations, AI remains a patchwork of pilot projects and individual enthusiasms, rather than an integrated core capability.
The regional comparisons also show that there’s no one-size-fits-all progress. Some emerging economies are seizing AI as a chance to leap ahead, while some developed markets move more deliberately. This could reshape competitive dynamics in the coming years, as AI “have-nots” risk falling behind more proactive peers.
On a positive note, awareness of the issue is growing. More companies are starting to invest in upskilling their people and appoint AI-focused teams. The next 1–2 years will be critical. Will the 90+% of companies still lacking AI leadership and skills make the leap? Those that do invest in AI literacy from the executive level down to every employee stand to benefit immensely – surveys indicate companies that close the AI skills gap can see up to 40% performance gains across their workforce.
The race is on to turn AI from a buzzword into business value, and the deciding factor won’t be the algorithms or tech itself, but human readiness. In this new era, a company’s understanding of AI, from the C-suite to the front line, may well determine its competitiveness and innovation potential in the years ahead.