A new global study by Tata Communications in partnership with Bloomberg Media Studios highlights a growing disconnect between enterprise AI ambition and underlying infrastructure readiness. While AI has become a board-level priority for most organizations, many enterprises are still constrained by legacy systems that are not equipped to support large-scale, data-intensive AI workloads.
The report, Building Durable AI Advantage, suggests that the success of enterprise AI will depend less on AI adoption itself and more on whether organizations can modernize and integrate the foundational systems that support it.
The study finds that while AI investment is now widely accepted at the executive level, enterprise infrastructure has not evolved at the same pace. Many organizations continue to operate on fragmented or legacy systems that struggle to handle the volatility and scale of AI workloads.
According to the report, AI demand does not increase linearly. Instead, workloads surge unpredictably, placing strain on connectivity, data pipelines, and integration layers that were not designed for modern AI systems.
Just 29% of surveyed leaders believe their infrastructure can effectively scale with evolving business requirements, underscoring a widening gap between strategy and execution.
The report introduces a framework of five interconnected “loops” that determine whether AI investments deliver sustained value or plateau over time:
Foundation focuses on infrastructure modernization, where fewer than half of enterprises report fully modernized systems. Organizations with advanced infrastructure are nearly twice as likely to achieve high AI value.
Integration remains a major constraint, with 28% of leaders citing difficulty connecting AI with legacy systems. Additionally, 38% report delays in approvals and procurement due to integration challenges.
Skills shortages are another limiting factor, with 30% of enterprises identifying talent gaps as a key barrier. This rises to 45% among organizations with revenues above $5 billion.
Governance is increasingly impacting execution speed, as 42% of enterprises report security and compliance reviews as the primary cause of AI-related delays.
ROI visibility remains fragmented, with many enterprises struggling to measure AI impact holistically across systems, leading to under-optimized reinvestment decisions.
The report highlights that integration complexity and governance overhead are becoming structural constraints in enterprise AI scaling. As organizations expand AI adoption, approval chains are becoming longer, and system interoperability challenges are slowing deployment cycles.
At the same time, enterprises increasingly recognize that seamless coordination between digital automation and human workflows is essential, with 67% of respondents emphasizing its importance for successful AI execution.
This fragmentation leads to value being measured in isolated pockets rather than as a connected enterprise-wide outcome.
Sumeet Walia, President & Chief Revenue Officer at Tata Communications, emphasized that infrastructure readiness—not AI adoption—is becoming the defining competitive factor for enterprises.
"AI has become one of the defining business priorities of our time, but the real differentiator is no longer AI itself — it's the infrastructure and integration that enable AI to deliver value at scale. Our research shows that while enterprise ambition is accelerating, readiness remains uneven. The organisations that will lead in the years ahead are those investing in the foundations that connect people, systems, data and intelligence across the enterprise."
He added that AI is driving convergence across compute, connectivity, and platforms, turning them into a unified infrastructure layer rather than separate systems.
The study emphasizes that enterprises generate temporary gains even when parts of their AI systems are underperforming. However, long-term success depends on aligning all five loops so they reinforce one another.
When foundation, integration, skills, governance, and ROI visibility operate in sync, AI investments compound in value. When even one loop lags, system-wide constraints emerge that limit scalability and performance.
The report suggests that enterprises capable of aligning these layers will be best positioned to extract sustained value from AI investments over the coming years.
About Tata Communications
A part of the Tata Group, Tata Communications (NSE: TATACOMM) (BSE: 500483) is a global digital ecosystem enabler powering today's fast-growing digital economy in more than 190 countries and territories. Leading with trust, it enables digital transformation of enterprises globally with collaboration and connected solutions, core and next gen connectivity, cloud hosting and security solutions and media services. 300 of the Fortune 500 companies are its customers and the company connects businesses to 80% of the world's cloud giants. For more information, please visit www.tatacommunications.com
About the report
The Building Durable AI Advantage Enterprise report is based on a survey of 501 executives and leaders directly involved in or influencing telecom infrastructure and procurement decisions. Fieldwork was conducted between December 2025 and January 2026 across markets including the US, UK, Germany, France, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, India, and the Benelux/Nordic regions. 65% of respondents are C-suite executives, and 35% are VP-level or above.
