The Enterprise AI Readiness Report 2026

Analysis of the 5 stages of enterprise AI adoption and where global leaders currently sit. Enterprise AI adoption does not happen in a single leap — it progresses through five distinct maturity stages that define an organisation's capability, culture, and competitive positioning. Stage 1 (Experimental) sees teams running isolated proof-of-concept projects with no centralised strategy, typically consuming 0–5% of IT budget on AI tooling. Stage 2 (Functional) marks the transition to departmental deployments where individual business units own their AI roadmaps, but integration across the enterprise remains fragmented. Stages 3 through 5 — Operational, Strategic, and AI-Native — represent the journey from coordinated enterprise programmes to organisations where AI is embedded in every product, process, and decision loop. APAC benchmarks from our 2026 survey of 312 regional enterpr...