KPMG: AI success starts with leadership, not technology investments
As organizations across the Middle East accelerate their investments in AI and embark on the journey toward an intelligent age, a new report from KPMG highlights that the organizations most likely to succeed will not necessarily be those that spend the most on the flashiest technology – but those whose leaders master the transition.
Titled ‘The Human Playbook for the Intelligence Age’, the report makes a clear and concise argument: the transition to intelligent, digitally driven business and operating models will require sustained attention and commitment from leadership, a redesign of organizational structures and workplaces, and people who know how to thrive in the digital age.
“Every organization is already adopting AI, so that is no longer where advantage is won or lost. The organizations that succeed will be those that redesign their enterprise architecture and leadership structures for the age they are entering,” said Mazhar Hussain, Partner at KPMG and author of the report.
The report provides a number of examples illustrating the case. Organizations that have established clear human accountability for AI decisions report returns more than three times higher than those without it. To put the scale of the accountability gap into perspective, 95% of organizations have an AI strategy, but only 8% have established a measurable ROI framework.
Organizations that redesign their operations, from decision-making at the highest level to activities on the frontline, benefit notably more from AI adoption. Additionally, a culture that embraces digital savviness can create a flywheel effect, driving greater usage and effectiveness of cutting-edge technologies such as AI.
“Organizations that treat AI as a tool to deploy within existing structures will hit a ceiling. Those that redesign around what the ‘intelligence age’ actually requires – and lead that redesign visibly and personally – will compound advantage rapidly,” said Hussain.
A framework with leaders at the helm
The KPMG report provides a practical behavioral framework for equipping organizations to lead in the digital future. The framework covers every level of the organization – from frontline professionals to CEOs – focusing on the specific capabilities to build, the habits to leave behind, and how to develop the skills and behaviors needed for the next phase of work.
At its core is what KPMG describes as a leadership transition that must be made: “every leader is now navigating from operator to overseer to orchestrator.”
“Leaders should not merely be governing what AI produces but actively directing the composition of human and agent capability, and deciding what humans bring that no system can replicate, and designing the enterprise around that answer,” Hussain explained.
The report adds that this challenge is shared across most markets around the world, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and that the solution, from a leadership perspective, is similarly universal.
“The technology value gap in boardrooms globally is present here in the Middle East too,” said Hussain. “Efficiency gains are arriving before revenue growth, and deployment is moving faster than the leadership capability to direct it. The infrastructure is being built. The ambition is real. What this region now needs – and what our paper addresses – is the leadership capability to match both.”
“The leaders who navigate this well will not be those who deployed AI fastest. They will be those who understood what the Intelligence Age was actually asking of them – and who chose to lead it.”
