Proof over Promise Insights on Real World AI Adoption from 2025 MINDS Organizations 2026

Building on this AI-as-infrastructure foundation, MINDS organizations are expanding AI applications and deploying it across operations and global supply chains to improve responsiveness and efficiency. Unifying diagnostics with AI BOX 2 Supply chain transformation powered by AI agents BOX 3China Huaneng Clean Energy Research Institute applies this pattern to enable intelligent renewable energy infrastructure management. With the operational complexity of these environments growing, fragmented approaches can’t keep up. Their AI-first approach lets them unify fault diagnostics, data and equipment management across disconnected sites, serving operations teams, maintenance engineers and remote monitoring staff. Lenovo applies this pattern to orchestrate a global supply chain. With operations spanning 30 manufacturing sites, 48 logistics hubs, 2,000 suppliers and 180 markets, a hybrid AI suite led by an AI agent unifies forecasting, supplier risk sensing, inventory optimization and logistics routing, tightening the loop between planning and execution. Disruptions are flagged up to two weeks earlier, and decision-making time is reduced by 50–60% across global operations. For most organizations, employees represent both the most critical user base and the greatest potential source for amplifying AI-driven impact. MINDS organizations are proving that successful AI adoption begins with people, not technology. They are focusing on bringing employees along the journey, harnessing human strengths and rethinking how work gets done in partnership with AI. Successful AI adoption begins with people MINDS organizations show that adoption accelerates when AI initiatives are co-designed with employees from the start. AI offers an opportunity to rethink workflows by engaging those who know them best, building ownership, increasing adoption and ensuring solutions meet real needs. This approach is reinforced through increased role-based upskilling, hands-on learning and AI champion networks, enabling people and technology to work seamlessly together.2.2 Insight 2: Amplifying strengths when humans and AI work together within a changing workforce Empowering people to transform biopharma’s processes BOX 4 Sanofi and OAO enabled 60,000 employees to co-create more than 1,300 AI use cases, embedding innovation into the fabric of their operations. The resulting transformation across Sanofi is supporting the biopharma company’s acceleration of the process from drug discovery to patient impact. Applicants to the MINDS programme are achieving faster, more sustained adoption by embedding AI directly into employees’ daily work rather than treating it as a separate technical layer. By designing tools around employees’ real needs and embedding AI literacy into learning programmes, these organizations enable workers to augment existing processes, unlocking higher adoption, trust and creativity (see Spotlight 3) and drawing on existing knowledge and insights. Leaders are also cultivating transparency and trust with important change management practices such as open dialogue about AI’s role, its impact on jobs and the skills needed to use it effectively. Regular communication and feedback help employees feel supported and confident as AI becomes part of their everyday work. Proof over Promise: Insights on Real-World AI Adoption from 2025 MINDS Organizations 14