Kim Baroudy

There are certain aspects of the AI opportunity that chief executives cannot hand off to others—raising the organization’s ambition, rearchitecting how it works, and resetting its culture. AI adoption is everywhere. Token costs have become a board-level topic. Pilots are proliferating in companies, across every function and geography.

How cognitive and physical AI are reinventing enterprise execution AI is no longer just a tool. It is becoming a workforce. Reasoning models and agentic skills now enable AI agents to execute complex cognitive tasks with limited supervision, while physical AI extends automation into the physical world. Together, these advances make close to 60 percent of work hours theoretically automatable. Yet the promise remains largely unrealized.

Leading European executives are investing more broadly in AI than ever—yet they struggle to convert that investment into measurable results. Chances are that every European consumer industry executive has had some version of the same conversation this year. Boards want to understand where AI investments are going. CFOs want to see measurable returns. Strategy teams point to an expanding set of AI initiatives across marketing, customer experience, supply chain, and technology development.