Harnessing managed services to deliver continuous AI-powered transformation

Harnessing managed services to deliver continuous AI-powered transformation at scale, faster, smarter and stronger 

A minority of businesses are successfully embedding artificial intelligence (AI) and securing the payoff. But most are struggling to move beyond pilots. So how can your business get on the winning side of this AI divide?   

2026 is shaping up to be a decisive year. Businesses are feeling the pressure to move from AI promise to performance and realise the payback on their investment. 

At the same time, they need to transform their operating models and strengthen trust with stakeholders around data protection, AI safety, and transparency.  

And as the pace of disruption accelerates, a transformation mindset must become a continuous discipline — not a once-in-a-decade overhaul.  

A pressing question at the forefront of CEOs’ agendas in our 29th Annual Global CEO Survey is whether their businesses are transforming fast enough to keep pace with technological change — including AI.

CEOs tell us that progress toward true transformation is often slow, and constrained by resources, skills, budgets, and time. And while organisations need to embed AI to drive operational and business gains, many are struggling to move beyond early exploration. Instead of moving towards enterprise-wide transformation powered by AI, there’s the risk of defaulting to isolated, tactical change initiatives that fail to deliver a meaningful impact. Only 12% of the CEOs in our survey have realised both cost savings and revenue gains from AI over the last year.  More than half have seen no material financial benefits.  

The main stumbling block isn’t ambition. It’s the know-how and capacity needed to drive AI adoption across the enterprise, in an integrated way capable of supporting broader strategic and transformation goals. Less than a quarter of CEOs say they’re deploying AI to a large or very large extent in major business areas such as demand generation, support services, or the company’s products, services, and experiences. This echoes our  Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey 2025, which found that only 14% of workers are using generative AI on a daily basis.  

Technology is increasingly accessible to all organisations via a thriving ecosystem of specialist and expert providers. But continuous operational transformation with AI is far more than just another tech implementation. It takes skills, management focus, and stakeholder trust to integrate and optimise the transformative impact of AI. Most businesses still have some way to go in developing and embedding these core foundations for continuous transformation.  

• Pressure on skills: Barely four in ten CEOs (42%) report that their organisations have been able to attract high quality AI talent.   
• Pressure on time: CEOs are grappling with the tyranny of the urgent. They spend nearly half (47%) of their time on issues with time horizons of less than one year. That’s three times more than the 16% dedicated to activities with a horizon of more than five years. And this is despite the fact that a significant proportion of CEOs are worried about the long-term viability of their enterprises.   
• Pressure on trust: Trust is tangible and vital. Missteps in data privacy, AI safety, and transparency can severely damage stakeholder trust. It’s troubling to see how many CEOs have experienced these kinds of trust concerns over the past year. Two-thirds of CEOs say stakeholder trust concerns have arisen in at least one area of business operations over the last 12 months. Trust is a durable strategic asset and differentiator. When trust is established, it empowers you to confidently and efficiently drive transformation, enabling you to introduce innovations to the market before your competitors.  

The ability to build and embed these foundations for successful transformation is prompting many organisations to reassess how they access skills, technology, AI, and capacity at scale.  

As we’ve seen in our own work with clients, managed services is proving to be the game-changer. We’ve been investing in the latest agentic AI and are now rolling out these capabilities as part of our managed services. With full access to our technology, clients can harness AI at pace and scale without having to put in their own investments. In this way, managed services both accelerates AI benefits and releases capital for deployment in other high growth areas. As a client, you can continually adapt, innovate, and drive growth without compromising on performance of current operations. And because we've integrated AI across various organisations, we understand what delivers results and how to reduce execution risks. 

Trust is the other key piece of this strategic puzzle. Trust can be built or lost through day-to-day operations. The high-profile fallout from cyber incidents and service outages shows how failures can hit the headlines and gravely undermine trust. Managed services can help you to compete on trust. We'll focus investment on the data, processes, and controls needed to anticipate and proactively address potential areas of vulnerability. As a pioneer in the responsible use of AI, we safely embed and monitor AI within the design of our managed services to reinforce our commitment to security, ethics, and compliance. The tangible value gains include reducing the frequency of adverse AI-related incidents and helping companies recover faster if such an event occurs.  

At a time when CEOs’ confidence in near and mid-term revenue growth has declined, their focus on achieving key strategic outcomes is more intense than ever. Managed services, aligned to these outcomes, provides the expertise and capability to help you get there faster, freeing up leadership time to focus on the big picture.    

Collaboration is critical. Drawing on our ongoing work with clients, two fundamental priorities stand out in how organisations successfully deploy managed services within their businesses:

• Operating Model: We think about managed services as a whole new operating model, powered by AI, rather than just another outsourcing option. This means being an extension of your business and an accelerator for transformation. We bring together the people who can help define your strategy with the capabilities needed to deliver transformative outcomes. We can also help you realise your goals without the distractions, uncertainties, and implementation risks that can so easily undermine success.  

• Trust: If effective, managed services can help you to hardwire trust into your operations, from cyber security to compliance controls. Mutual trust between you and your managed services provider is just as important. This means shared goals and seamless operational integration. Our outcomes-based model supports these common goals by being closely tied to the delivery of client objectives.  

The shift towards continuous transformation means having operating models that can evolve as fast as your industry, regulations, and technology. So, by enabling your business to transform further, faster, and more confidently, the right managed services provider can provide the edge you need to put you on the winning side of the AI divide.  

If you would like to know more about how our managed services can help you to realise your transformation goals, please get in touch.