Almost every company has a board or executive AI mandate. Vendors are rolling out agentic AI platforms. The pressure to move is intense. But the reality on the ground looks different. Eighty-three percent of organizations say data quality is their top AI challenge, and 74% struggle to demonstrate ROI, according to Lopez Research. And only 21% report having a mature governance model for AI agents, per Deloitte’s 2026 State of Enterprise AI report. “Agentic AI is real, and vendors’ offerings are very real, too,” says Boris Evelson, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. “However, most enterprises are still not ready to adopt at scale.” Dave Hilborn, who leads West Monroe’s Organization, People & Change practice, frames it as a race with three arrows moving forward — one representing AI and tech evolution, one representing organizations and people, and one representing data. “The AI arrow is far out ahead,” he says. “That delta is the readiness gap.”

Full report : From data foundations to skills and culture, most organizations aren’t operationally ready to succeed with AI. Here’s where CIOs can make a strategic difference.