3 Key Attributes for Successful AI Adoption (What Top Adopters Do Differently)

Three years into the generative AI revolution, most CEOs acknowledge the transformative potential of artificial intelligence. But a small (and growing) group of early adopters is turning that potential into real results. According to a 2025 survey of New York Stock Exchange-listed companies by Oliver Wyman Forum and the NYSE, 17% of companies with revenues above $1 billion report at least a 10% increase in revenue or cost savings thanks to AI. While winning the first lap of the AI race doesn’t guarantee long-term victory, there’s a lot others can learn from these frontrunners. These leading companies aren’t waiting for perfect proof or feasibility studies – they’re using AI now to drive innovation across their business, and they’re making sure their people have the skills to use AI in pursuit of the company’s goals.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of the three attributes that successful AI adopters have in common, and how your organization can develop them:

1. They make AI a strategic imperative

Leading companies weave AI into their core strategy, treating it as a fundamental driver of innovation, growth, and competitive advantage – not just an experimental pilot on the side. Nearly half (46%) of these AI leaders put long-term business transformation through technology (including AI) among their top priorities for creating value in the next two years. Their CEOs certainly recognize AI’s importance: about 70% of CEOs at AI-leading firms rank technology and AI as the biggest factors for competitiveness over the next 5–10 years, compared to only 45% of CEOs at less AI-focused companies. Tellingly, even among the leaders, half worry that they’re not moving fast enough with AI, fearing they could be left behind by bolder competitors.

This strategic focus means AI leaders zero in on initiatives that deliver a real return on investment (ROI). They are seven times more likely than others to say it’s not too early to be measuring AI’s ROI, and they prioritize projects that add tangible value. Nearly 80% of these early adopters report that their AI investments have already met or exceeded expectations (versus only 28% of CEOs in the non-AI-leading group). About one-third of leading adopters even say over 20% of their revenue now comes from AI-enabled products or services – a huge testament to how central AI has become to their business.

At Digital Bricks, we specialise in helping organisations make AI a true strategic imperative. We work with companies to develop a robust AI strategy, often complemented by a comprehensive AI policy framework, to ensure they approach AI adoption with clear goals and vision. By grounding AI initiatives in real business objectives and governance from the start, companies move beyond one-off pilot projects and integrate AI as a core part of their long-term roadmap – exactly what we see in the most successful AI adopters.

However, many businesses still use AI only for small, incremental improvements. The real game-changer comes when AI is used to reimagine how work is done, not just to speed up existing processes. Even today’s AI leaders encounter bottlenecks where human-driven workflows limit the full value AI could deliver. The lesson: to capture enterprise-level value, organizations often need to redesign workflows around AI capabilities. Success stories abound to illustrate this point. One North American restaurant chain, for example, deployed an AI virtual assistant in its hiring process – the assistant chats with job candidates, answers their questions, collects basic info, schedules interviews, and even makes job offers in real time. By making AI an integral part of their recruiting strategy, the company cut the average time to hire from 12 days to just 4 days, while boosting application completion rates from 50% to 85%. This kind of result isn’t luck; it comes from treating AI as central to the business. It’s the payoff of a strategic approach to AI – something we’ve helped our clients achieve by ensuring their AI adoption is driven by well-defined strategy and value goals from day one.

2. They seize opportunities in uncertain times

Leading AI adopters have a bold mindset: in uncertain times, they see opportunity where others see risk. Because they deeply understand their customers and core purpose, these companies can move fast and decide how to leverage AI when conditions change. They’re roughly 30% more likely than their peers to view talent and workforce turbulence as an opportunity rather than a threat, and over 40% more likely to treat shifting customer needs as a chance to pull ahead of the competition. In other words, when the environment gets challenging, AI leaders get creative, using AI to adapt quickly and even reinvent parts of their business.

For example, Domino’s Pizza UK & Ireland used to manage demand and inventory with hundreds of spreadsheets, trying to guess what customers would order and where. When big weather events or sports matches hit, some stores would be overstocked and others run out of key ingredients. Then they adopted an AI-enabled demand planning system (built on Microsoft Dynamics 365) that could pull in historical sales, external signals, and weather data. Now they can generate demand forecasts for each store almost daily and shift supplies between locations quickly. The outcome was a huge improvement in forecast accuracy, much lower food waste, and better ingredient availability in the right stores at the right time. In a shifting market, Domino’s turned what used to be uncertainty into a competitive edge by using AI adoption to respond fast and decisively.

This ability to act decisively with AI, especially amid uncertainty, is something we foster at Digital Bricks. As a 360° AI lifecycle partner, our role extends beyond strategy into rapid implementation. We help organisations identify opportunities and act on them quickly, backed by our global developer talent and resources. With teams stationed around the world and offices in Amsterdam and Dubai, we can commit the right expertise and scale up development capacity. This global reach means our clients can execute AI solutions at pace when market conditions shift. By having a partner who can support end-to-end AI development and deployment, companies are better equipped to capitalise on opportunities (or navigate disruptions) in real time, just like the AI leaders do.

3. They activate employees

It’s often said that technology’s true value depends on the people who use it. Successful AI adopters know this, which is why they heavily invest in their employees – not just in software or hardware. Organizations worldwide spend millions on AI technology, yet many overlook their most important resource: their workforce. That’s a big mistake considering that, on average, workers should expect 39% of their current skill sets to change or become outdated between 2025 and 2030 (World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025). Leading companies avoid this pitfall by embedding AI into day-to-day work and giving employees the training and tools they need to use it. Employees at these AI-forward firms are nearly twice as likely to have received formal AI training compared to those at other companies. They’re also more than three times as likely to use AI on a daily basis, and twice as likely to say that AI has improved collaboration among their teams. In short, top adopters pair their AI investments with significant AI literacy and upskilling initiatives so that their people can actually leverage the new technology.

Of course, many workers are anxious about AI – worrying it might disrupt their roles or even replace them. But when handled correctly, AI adoption can increase job satisfaction. According to the OECD’s Employment Outlook 2023, employees who work with well-implemented AI often find their jobs become more engaging and rewarding. In fact, at companies leading in AI adoption, workers are almost three times more likely to express strong confidence in their company’s future, and roughly twice as likely to feel secure in their jobs during AI-driven changes (based on global surveys by Oliver Wyman Forum). These confident employees are the ones volunteering to join AI pilot projects, proposing process improvements, and troubleshooting new AI systems. By contrast, at organizations lagging in AI, employees tend to wait for strict directives and often create friction around change – understandable, since they haven’t been empowered to participate in the AI journey. Interestingly, many AI laggards focus on external partnerships or financial defenses to navigate change, whereas AI leaders put more emphasis on internal transformation and building their people’s capabilities. Engaging and upskilling your workforce is a make-or-break factor in successful AI adoption.

At Digital Bricks, we have extensive experience helping organizations activate their employees in exactly this way. We design enterprise AI training and literacy programs, as well as role-specific learning experiences, to get teams comfortable and competent with AI tools. For example, our Copilot Adoption Accelerator program upskills employees on using M365 Copilot in their everyday roles. The goal is to build confidence and competence across the workforce so that employees at all levels are eager to embrace AI rather than resist it. By raising AI literacy and providing hands-on experience, we help companies cultivate a culture where people actively engage with AI solutions – driving adoption from the ground up. When your employees are empowered and excited about AI, your organisation can unlock the full potential of technologies like generative AI, instead of having them sit idle on the shelf, our programme extends into the full Microsoft AI Stack, through tools low-code like Copilot Studio to empower your teams to create and distribute their own agents, whether they are retrieval, task or in some cases autonomous. And build without limits with Power Studio, Power Apps. Create copilots with custom code and full control with pro code. Leverage Agents Toolkit in Visual Studio, Azure AI Foundry and Microsoft Fabric

Being an AI leader today isn’t a guarantee of dominating tomorrow, but moving early does offer a real advantage. Companies that jump in now become natural laboratories – they get to experiment, learn what works (and what doesn’t), and refine their approach while others are still hesitating. Yes, they’ll make mistakes along the way (everyone does), but AI is advancing so rapidly that the lessons and improvements compound quickly. Those accumulated advantages could leave only a narrow window for slower movers to catch up. The bottom line? Successful AI adoption requires a clear strategy, agile execution in tough times, and an empowered workforce. Organizations that cultivate these three attributes – and get started sooner rather than later – will be the ones to achieve lasting value from AI while others struggle to keep pace. The race has started, and the best time to accelerate your AI journey is now.

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