LeadershipMay 2026Inaugural edition

Only 1% of organizations call their AI deployment mature, and leaders underestimate how much staff already use it

Original reporting: McKinsey

McKinsey finds just 21% of companies have redesigned workflows end to end and only 1% describe their AI as mature, while leaders estimate employee AI use at roughly a third of the real rate.

Why it matters

The survey's most useful number is not adoption, which is high. It is the 21% who have actually redesigned a workflow end to end.

The rest bought tools and left the process intact. That is why maturity sits at 1%: adoption without redesign is motion, not change.

The ReasonFirst take

The gap is not adoption, it is redesign. Tools land on desks; the work never changes shape. Maturity is a workflow question, not a software one.

Who should care

Healthcare executivesDeansOperational leadersAssociation leaders

What to watch

Whether organizations move from counting tools deployed to measuring work actually redesigned.

A question worth sitting with

Has the tool changed how the work happens, or just what screen it happens on?

adoptionworkflowmaturity

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