Cisco AI Readiness Index

Where the business world stands — and where it needs to go — to compete in an AI era that refuses to stand still.

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Readiness isn’t the destination, it’s the journey

Each year, we benchmark how organizations are progressing from preparation to performance-measuring how they’re deploying, scaling and governing AI, and who’s realizing its value.

2025 Global Readiness
% Pacesetters
% Chasers
% Followers
% Laggards
2024 Global Readiness
% Pacesetters
% Chasers
% Followers
% Laggards
2023 Global Readiness
% Pacesetters
% Chasers
% Followers
% Laggards

What AI leaders do differently

% Pacesetters
% Global
Strategy separates leaders from wishful thinkers

99% of Pacesetters have a well-defined AI strategy vs. 58% overall. You can't execute what you haven't planned.

% Pacesetters
% Global
Not all networks were built for AI — and 85% know it

Only 15% have networks fully ready for AI vs. 71% of Pacesetters. When AI workloads surge, the network can become the bottleneck that you’ll struggle to fix under strain.

% Pacesetters
% Global
Scattered data means scattered results

76% of Pacesetters have fully centralized data vs. 19% overall. AI can only work with data it can find.

% Pacesetters
% Global
Security as infrastructure, not as afterthought

84% of Pacesetters have end-to-end encryption with continuous monitoring vs. 30% of all companies. Trust helps deliver speed. Secure infrastructure helps deliver trust.

% Pacesetters
% Global
AI without preparing people? Pilots stay pilots.

91% of Pacesetters have comprehensive change management plans vs. 35% of all companies. Technology changes fast. People need help keeping up.

% Pacesetters
% Global
The scale and speed gap: Where pilots go to die

97% of Pacesetters say they deployed AI at the scale and speed necessary to realize ROI vs. 41% overall. The 56-point gap? That's the difference between AI that delivers business value and an expensive experiment.

% Pacesetters
% Global
Strong AI needs stronger oversight

Only 24% of organizations can control agent actions with proper guardrails and live monitoring — compared to 84% of Pacesetters. Without governance, AI risks scale faster than innovation.

% Pacesetters
% Global
How AI leaders architect differently

97% of Pacesetters deploy AI at the scale and speed needed to realize value, compared with just 41% globally. Their advantage comes from infrastructure decisions that compound over time. Explore how AI leaders make fundamentally different choices in this Infrastructure Infographic.

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