IBM: Why AI Will Shape Tomorrow’s Smartest Enterprises

No matter the industry, AI is changing the way that people work and businesses are run, and now, according to an IBM study, it is poised to drive smarter business growth.

The new research reveals that 79% of surveyed executives expect AI will significantly contribute to their revenue by 2030, up from 40% currently. However only 24% of these execs have a clear view of where that revenue will come from.

Investment is increasing despite this apparent uncertainty, with respondents predicting that AI investment will surge approximately 150% between 2026 and 2030.

Mohamad Ali, Senior Vice President of IBM Consulting, says: “By 2030, the companies that win will weave AI into every decision and operation. They will own powerful AI assets, move faster than competitors, bring innovations to market quickly, and deliver real, measurable business results using technology and automation.”

This study consists of insights from 2,000 C-suite executives around the world, and shows that future success comes from making bolder strategic bets, despite gaps between expectation and outcome. 

Smarter enterprise to drive future gains

Over half of leaders now say their competitive advantage will come primarily from the sophistication and development of their AI models by 2030.

IBM says that people will need to build stand-out technology for even the best teams to deliver an edge in an “AI-first world”.

Discussing this idea, Alex Schultz, Vice President of Analytics and Chief Marketing Officer at Meta says: “By 2030, we will do things that were previously too expensive to be ROI-positive.

“We will also build products that simply couldn’t exist without AI semantic understanding.”

The margin for AI success lies between companies being AI-enabled and AI-first, IBM says, defined by the difference in how organisations design and orchestrate thousands of decentralised AI agents that work alongside employees.

To be AI-first, each agent must be aligned with the company’s purpose, culture and competitive edge. 

Winning in 2030

The survey, which was conducted in partnership with Oxford Economics, highlighted the changes to the top C-suite priorities towards AI capabilities.

In 2025, ‘forecast accuracy’ is of highest priority, followed by ‘productivity or efficiency/ profitability’ and ‘product and service innovation’.

However, in 2026 to 2030, ‘product service innovation’ takes the top spot, followed by ‘productivity or efficiency/ profitability’ remaining and second place and a new entry of ‘speed of execution at number three’.

Over half (55%) of executives say competitive advantage in 2030 will depend on speed, stating its a competitive advantage to be quick thinking rather than have perfect decision-making.

To move at speed within such a rapidly changing technology environment, IBM says that organisations need to foster a culture of “outcomes-focused experimentation”. This includes:

• Rapidly deploying minimum viable products (MVPs)
• Iterating and tracking performance 
• Deciding which MVPs to scale to deliver most business value

Although this takes a newly developed structure, it offers opportunity to not just the top companies. Aaron Levie, CEO and Co-Founder of Box, says: “A startup can now operate at the same scale as a large enterprise, but move at a much faster speed.

“That means smaller companies can really disrupt the markets they’re going after.”

Staying ahead of the curve

IBM highlights that as business leaders focus on staying ahead of AI, they could be at risk of missing a seismic shift in quantum computing.

The study highlights that while 59% of execs say quantum-computing will transform their industry by 2030, only 27% expect to be using quantum computing by then.

The organisations that expect quantum-enabled capabilities to drive the highest portion of 2030 revenues are also more focused on building strong ecosystem alliances and identifying early use cases that may help them gain competitive advantage in the quantum field.

Kristie Chon Flynn, Data Protection Officer at Google, says: “Building a robust, proactive plan for quantum resilience is going to take some investment - and I deliberately use the word investment, because it’s not a cost.”

This means that the smartest enterprises will stay ahead of the AI curve whilst acting on quantum, not waiting for it to arrive.