AI can't transform what the foundation can't support

Ecosystem partnerships lead, with 69% of COOs seeing significant opportunity to expand strategic alliances and partnerships. These arrangements are evolving from one-sided deals toward multiparty models, sometimes including competitors, that are harder to manage but generate substantially more value for all participants. COOs are partnering with, aggregating or acquiring ecosystem partners to deepen vertical integration, land larger contracts and enter adjacent markets, including high-growth areas like AI infrastructure.

Privacy and identity protection compliance leads at 3.52 on a five-point impact scale, up from 2.71, followed by cyber threats (3.50), new risks from implementing AI (3.44), economic conditions (3.43) and limited access to technology skills (3.40). COOs' concern rose for 27 of the 28 risks rated in both years. With cyber, privacy and AI risks dominating, COOs must protect the data AI consumes across the organisation and a growing portfolio of third parties.

COOs see the biggest opportunity in reinventing how work gets done, not optimising existing processes. Their top AI priorities are equipping the workforce (50%), integrating AI with existing technologies, processes and the workforce (49%) and securing the data AI uses (36%). Operating leaders are redesigning work from the ground up and using AI to perform work they struggle to staff, shifting the conversation from labour substitution to labour availability.

Infrastructure modernisation is COOs' top investment priority by a wide margin, at 44%. Human capital management and workforce skilling, cybersecurity and business process improvements also rank among their top priorities. Because aging systems hinder AI integration, COOs are pursuing ERP cloud migrations, digital twins, IoT-enabled logistics tracking and other operational technology upgrades. They want AI-enabled capabilities that influence decisions and automate actions, not just more dashboards.

52% of COOs report high confidence in their ability to protect enterprise value and 42% in transforming the enterprise, but only 34% in responding with agility to emerging opportunities and risks. The COO role centers on transformation and protection, yet COOs play a central part in operational resilience. Planning in lockstep with commercial and revenue functions helps operational capabilities flex quickly when new threats and opportunities emerge.