Not long ago, AI was considered the stuff of science fiction. Today, it’s a business imperative. AI’s rapid evolution is reshaping the landscape of enterprise technology, and organizations that fail to keep up risk being at a significant competitive disadvantage.
To effectively navigate this complex and fast-moving environment, enterprises need a clear understanding of their AI maturity. Assessing this maturity involves evaluating not only the adoption of AI solutions, but also their integration into comprehensive business processes and workflows, enhancing operational efficiency and facilitating strategic decision-making.
ServiceNow’s Enterprise AI Maturity Index indicates a perplexing trend: Despite increased AI investments, overall enterprise AI maturity has declined. This counterintuitive finding is primarily driven by the rapid pace of technological advancement and the significant complexity involved in effectively integrating emerging AI solutions.
Nonetheless, organizations we identified as AI Pacesetters—those displaying the highest levels of AI maturity—show rapid progress is still possible with the right strategy.
The moves that set AI Pacesetters apart from the rest of the pack are clear—and they’re easily adopted by companies of any size. That’s because they’re more about the habits, practices, and strategies that allow an organization to unlock AI’s full potential, and less about technology spend or headcount.
Here’s what Pacesetters are doing differently:
- Pacesetters lead with an innovation mindset. They embrace an AI-first approach that reimagines capabilities, outcomes, business models, products, services, and experiences. And they do it strategically, with a clearly defined set of success metrics.
- Pacesetters prefer platforms. They recognize the power of knocking down silos to allow data to flow between business functions, enabling every team to draw on a central repository of information.
- Pacesetters focus on talent. They aren’t just hiring; they’re upskilling too. In addition, Pacesetters are more likely than other growth companies to identify AI champions among their staff and empower these leaders.
- Pacesetters prioritize AI governance. They take a proactive stance on the responsible use of AI, assessing AI applications for risk and working to understand data privacy requirements.
- Pacesetters embrace agentic AI. It’s no surprise, because they’re better prepared for it. Over a third of Pacesetters are already putting AI agents to work, compared with fewer than one in five among the rest of the pack.
It’s true that some larger companies may have an edge when it comes to getting the most out of AI. After all, they have larger budgets and deeper talent pools. But the gap isn’t as big as one might think: The average Enterprise AI Maturity Index score for companies with fewer than 2,500 employees is 33.4, compared with 35.2 for their larger peers. With the right moves, not only can midsize firms close that gap, they can surge ahead.
A great example is LAB3, an Australia-based firm that helps businesses and government clients to modernize and transform their critical infrastructure with cloud platforms and new AI technologies. To support its rapid growth and continue delivering outstanding service to its customers, LAB3 turned to the ServiceNow AI Platform. The goal: to help its customer service reps and support engineers solve problems faster and enhance the self-service experience.
AI is making it all possible. LAB3 now has 24/7 access to AI assistance to ask questions, expedite issue resolution, and retrieve information.
“Our service desk staff really like the AI platform. They can work smarter and be more productive, enabling them to serve customers better,” says Anthony Wales, director for strategic growth at LAB3.
The emergence of agentic AI illustrates how continuous disruption is the only constant in today’s business environment. Most companies are still figuring out how they can use AI agents to drive value. That’s creating an opening for the most creative and motivated growth businesses. Because AI agents can be deployed quickly, companies can gain a competitive edge with better experiences, increased productivity, and improved margins.
To make the most of this opportunity, companies should do the following:
“That’s a big win for companies running lean on resources,” says Nishant Akella, a senior manager of expert services at ServiceNow.
For companies earlier in their AI maturity journeys, quick wins are crucial. Start by using foundational platform capabilities and prebuilt agents. Some growth companies see early success when they begin with a focus on customer support, such as letting AI augment your customer service team to resolve issues automatically. Others find the most initial value in powering internal support with AI to triage incidents quickly and automatically.
In all cases, AI delivers fast and accurate resolutions, giving your employees more time to focus on higher-value work. These out-of-the-box solutions allow teams to start building value with AI before expanding to more complex use cases. “This approach is cost-effective and proven,” says Akella. “It’s a great way to find quick successes.”
Focusing on people as much as platforms creates a culture of innovation and helps ensure that AI investments deliver sustainable business impact.
By embracing the ability to be nimble and move quickly, growth companies can use AI to overcome some of the advantages their larger competitors may have. In the race to put AI to work, size is irrelevant. Any company can be a Pacesetter.
Find out how ServiceNow helps put AI to work for people.
