GBTEC’s 2025 Process Excellence and AI-Readiness Report, released in August 2025, reveals a critical gap in organizational preparedness for AI and automation. While 78% of organizations plan major AI and automation initiatives within two years, only 20% possess the operational maturity needed for success. The report, based on insights from 600 senior leaders across ANZ, Europe, and North America, underscores process excellence as the cornerstone for sustainable transformation.
The report highlights a stark disparity: while nearly all organizations are investing heavily in AI and automation, fewer than 20% have reached an “AI-powered” level of process maturity, characterized by proactive process management, collaborative AI, and human-machine interaction. “Many organizations overlook their processes and are surprised when automation and AI projects don’t deliver,” said Scott Leddy, Vice President, North America, GBTEC. This gap threatens the projected $4.4 trillion in AI-driven productivity gains by 2030, as enterprises struggle to align operations with technology.
GBTEC identifies six critical factors for achieving process excellence and AI readiness:
Among these, enterprise architecture alignment is pivotal. As 85% of leaders note, transformation fails without end-to-end process visibility, underscoring the need for a structured framework linking business processes and IT systems.
The report notes that 61% of leaders plan to integrate agentic AI—self-directed AI agents capable of independent task execution—within two years, with 32% targeting end-to-end process deployment. However, less than half of organizations have sufficiently mature processes to support this, risking inefficiencies and failed projects. “Automation programs that aren’t aligned to process management are essentially flying blind,” said Alexander Trail, Senior Account Executive, Northern Europe, GBTEC.
Organizations with high process maturity report significant benefits:
These outcomes highlight the competitive advantage of process excellence, particularly as 87% of leaders agree that AI’s value is limited without clear, accountable processes.
While GBTEC’s findings emphasize process excellence, the report’s focus on enterprise architecture alignment may oversimplify the complexities of AI adoption. Cultural resistance, data quality issues, and skill gaps—often cited in broader AI research—are underrepresented here. The 20% readiness figure aligns with McKinsey’s 2025 AI survey, which notes only 1% of companies believe they’ve reached full AI maturity, suggesting GBTEC’s data is consistent but may underplay non-process barriers.
GBTEC, headquartered in Bochum, Germany, is a leading SaaS provider in Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM), Digital Process Automation (DPA), and Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC). With 300 employees across the DACH region, Spain, Australia, the UK, USA, and Saudi Arabia, GBTEC serves SMEs to Fortune 500 companies with no-code/low-code solutions.
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