A new report from IFS — a provider of industrial artificial intelligence (AI) software — said there is an “invisible revolution” in which the focus is shifting from productivity-led AI experimentation to “embedded, operational AI across core business processes.”
The report, titled “The IFS Invisible Revolution Study 2025,” surveyed more than 1,700 senior decisionmakers at industrial enterprises around the world. The report noted what IFS refers to as an “execution gap,” in which companies moved into AI faster than their team members can upskill.
This, the report says, is especially a problem in the telecommunications industry. The report found that 52% of respondents admit their organization lacks the budget for AI and system readiness. Despite this, 88% say AI has improved profitability and 74% say AI is generating more ROI than expected.
The report suggests that training and upskilling are keys to staying competitive in an “AI-first environment.” The good news for the industry is that 65% of organizations expect to be ready for such environments within a year.
Telecom companies are prioritizing AI governance and are formalizing AI leadership “at scale,” the report found. Seventy-three percent of these companies believe their organizations should be directly involved in AI regulation and 63% plan to appoint a head of AI within a year. This, AFS says, suggests structural readiness for enterprise transformation.
“AI is a core driver of business performance, it’s time to plug the ‘AI Execution Gap’ — bring people, process, and product together to deliver tangible outcomes,” IFS Network Black CEO Kriti Sharma said in a press release.
Companies are updating and upgrading their platforms in light of the demands of AI. For instance, in late September, infrastructure providers Zayo and Equinix released the AI Infrastructure Blueprint. The goal is to give AI providers and neoclouds a framework that defines the roles of high-capacity networks, interconnection hubs, training, and inference data centers. The plan also provides a model for connecting them.
Two recent reports spoke to the impact of AI. Protiviti found that 68% of organizations will integrate autonomous or semi-autonomous AI agents into their core operations by next year. SAS found that generative AI (such as ChatGPT) was thought to be 200% more trustworthy than traditional AI (e.g., machine learning), even though traditional AI is more established and reliable.
