The AI-First Organization: Nine Operating Model Shifts from Pilots to Performance

Summary

Roland Berger’s global study, based on a survey of 472 executives and senior leaders conducted in late 2025 and early 2026, examines why AI investment and pilots so often fail to produce measurable enterprise results. Its central finding is that organizations frequently change their technology while leaving the operating model largely untouched. Although 62% of respondents expect major or radical operating model changes from AI transformation, only 38% have begun acting, and 59% say their leadership is not sufficiently prepared. Nearly half identify people, skills and capabilities as the leading barrier to generating AI value, ahead of organizational structure and processes, with technology requirements ranking lower. The study argues that AI is widening the productivity gap between leaders and laggards and shifting value creation toward outcome-led, cross-functional operating models in which AI systems work backward from defined results. It identifies nine shifts across three maturity levels: foundational governance, platforms and distributed capabilities; execution through data-driven decisions, AI-oriented process redesign and leadership for hybrid human-AI work; and scaling through changes to structure, ambition and culture. Culture has the largest effect size in the survey data. Roland Berger concludes that leaders must adapt the operating model with urgency if they want AI adoption to become self-sustaining and support durable advantage.