John Pettit is the CTO of Promevo. Enterprises spent the past two years racing to deploy generative AI. In 2026, the real test begins: proving its operational value. According to McKinsey's 2025 The State of AI report, nearly 88% of businesses report regular AI use in at least one function, and many have embedded AI directly into core workflows. What began as experimentation now looks more like infrastructure. But deployment alone is not the same as business value.