Leadership roadmap for next-generation operations FIGURE 8 Strengthen process discipline: Stabilize, simplify, digitize before autonomy — Autonomous capabilities cannot compensate for inconsistent execution — Core processes must be stabilized, simplified and digitized before advanced automation is layered on#1 #2 #3 Focus on decision-critical data: Enable decisions, not data perfection _ — Prioritize decision-critical data, ensuring reliability, interoperability and access across operations, rather than pursuing enterprise- wide data perfectionPrioritize few, material use cases: Shift from pilots to financial line of sight — Focus on a small number of use cases that materially improve responsiveness, resilience or cost transparency, with clear visibility into financial impact #4 #5 #6 Strengthen the digital core with NEXT-first thinking: Scale up deliberately, avoid fragmentation — Ensure data, analytics and AI inform decisions across functions, with NEXT-first sequencing guiding technology investments toward enterprise impactReimagine human-machine collaboration*: From execution to orchestration and learning — Shift human roles to orchestration, exception management and system learning, while machines take on optimization and execution at speedScale autonomy with trust and sustainability: From localized autonomy to network operations — Embed trust, accountability, sustainability and resilience into operations as autonomy scales up across sites and ecosystems Note: *The World Economic Forum’s Human-Machine Collaboration (HMC) initiative reinforces this shift by helping organizations prepare the workforce with the skills, capabilities and collaboration models needed to succeed alongside increasingly autonomous systems. As autonomy increasingly scales up through ecosystem orchestration and platform-based models, leaders must also actively manage power imbalances and dependency risks. When control over critical platforms, data standards or decision logic concentrates with a small number of orchestrators, mid-tier suppliers and manufacturers risk being commoditized unless they retain differentiation, selective data control and a voice in ecosystem governance. How these dynamics are managed will shape not only adoption speed, but also how value is distributed across the ecosystem. In the end, the leadership challenge is one of execution and choice. Whether embedding autonomy from the outset in new environments or integrating it incrementally across complex brownfield operations, the decisions that leaders make now will shape how effectively autonomy scales up over time. Intelligent Industrial Operations Outlook 2026 53