Global AI Readiness Among Workforce Drops to 23%
Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst
Updated: 1 hour ago
0mins
Source: PRnewswire
- Decline in Readiness: Kyndryl's report reveals that only 23% of 1,100 global business leaders believe their workforce is ready for AI, a 6-point drop from 2025, indicating a lack of confidence in AI implementation that could hinder future tech investments and innovation.
- Surge in AI Spending: Worldwide AI spending is projected to reach $2.52 trillion in 2026, a 44% year-over-year increase, suggesting that despite readiness issues, companies are accelerating AI adoption to realize value at scale, though insufficient workforce support may lead to lower ROI.
- Pacesetters' Success: The report identifies a
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Analyst Views on KD
Wall Street analysts forecast KD stock price to rise
4 Analyst Rating
3 Buy
1 Hold
0 Sell
Strong Buy
Current: 11.100
Low
28.00
Averages
33.25
High
40.00
Current: 11.100
Low
28.00
Averages
33.25
High
40.00
About KD
Kyndryl Holdings, Inc. is a provider of mission-critical enterprise technology services offering advisory, implementation and managed service capabilities to customers in more than 60 countries. The Company designs, builds, manages and modernizes complex information systems around the world. Its segments include United States, Japan, Principal Markets and Strategic Markets. It offers services across domains, such as cloud services, core enterprise and zCloud services, applications, data and artificial intelligence (AI) services, digital workplace services, security and resiliency services and network and edge services. Its advisory and implementation services are branded as Kyndryl Consult. It provides end-to-end enterprise data services, including data transformation, data architecture and management, data governance and compliance and data migration. It provides comprehensive enterprise cybersecurity services for chief information security officers (CISOs) and chief risk officers.
About the author

Emily J. Thompson
Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.
- Decline in Readiness: Kyndryl's report reveals that only 23% of 1,100 global business leaders believe their workforce is ready for AI, a 6-point drop from 2025, indicating a lack of confidence in AI implementation that could hinder future tech investments and innovation.
- Surge in AI Spending: Worldwide AI spending is projected to reach $2.52 trillion in 2026, a 44% year-over-year increase, suggesting that despite readiness issues, companies are accelerating AI adoption to realize value at scale, though insufficient workforce support may lead to lower ROI.
- Pacesetters' Success: The report identifies a
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- Declining AI Readiness: Kyndryl's report reveals that only 23% of organizations believe their workforce is ready for AI, a 6-point drop from last year, indicating increasing challenges in AI implementation that could impact future competitiveness.
- Accelerated AI Investment: Global AI spending is projected to reach $2.52 trillion by 2026, a 44% year-over-year increase, reflecting the urgent need for companies to invest heavily in technology transformation, although insufficient workforce readiness may hinder ROI.
- Pacesetter Performance: Only 9% of organizations are identified as Pacesetters due to effective measures in AI management, change management, and workforce readiness, making them 1.5 times more likely to achieve AI-related revenue growth, underscoring the importance of strategic execution.
- Trust and Governance: 33% of organizations have established clear policies on AI decision-making, and 27% utilize monitoring capabilities for AI systems; strong governance frameworks enhance workforce trust in AI, leading to better business outcomes.
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- Strategic Collaboration Expansion: Kyndryl's expanded Strategic Collaboration Agreement with AWS aims to assist customers in adopting and scaling agentic AI, supporting their modernization and operation of mission-critical workloads on AWS, which is expected to enhance business transformation capabilities.
- Talent Development Investment: AWS is investing in Kyndryl's technical team, which currently includes over 11,000 AWS-certified professionals, strengthening its capabilities in AI specialization and industry modernization, thereby accelerating AI-driven innovation.
- Industry-Specific Blueprint Development: Kyndryl and AWS plan to co-develop new industry-specific agentic AI modernization blueprints to help customers rapidly adopt AI solutions while maximizing the value and resilience of their existing AWS Cloud investments, which is anticipated to improve operational efficiency.
- Successful Case Demonstration: Kyndryl and AWS successfully completed IT modernization and cloud migration for Alpitour World, ensuring AI supports daily operations and enhancing customer confidence in cloud migration, showcasing the practical outcomes of their collaboration.
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- Collaboration Agreement Expansion: Kyndryl's expanded Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) with AWS aims to assist customers in adopting and scaling agentic AI, enhancing their modernization capabilities for mission-critical workloads on AWS, which is expected to significantly improve business transformation efficiency.
- Talent Development Investment: AWS is investing in Kyndryl's technical team, which currently includes over 11,000 AWS-certified professionals, a move that will accelerate agentic AI innovation and help customers manage systems more effectively while reducing manual efforts.
- Industry-Specific Solutions: Kyndryl and AWS plan to co-develop new industry-specific agentic AI modernization blueprints to help over 68% of customers heavily investing in AI overcome challenges in practical application, thereby achieving greater operational efficiency and value.
- Successful Case Sharing: Kyndryl and AWS successfully completed IT modernization and cloud migration for Alpitour World, ensuring that AI plays a role in daily operations, which has enhanced customer confidence and control during the cloud migration process.
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- Shareholder Lawsuit Investigation: Kuehn Law, PLLC is investigating whether Kyndryl Holdings, Inc.'s executives breached their fiduciary duties, with allegations including systematic manipulation of free cash flow metrics that misled investors about the company's financial health.
- Cash Flow Manipulation: The allegations state that Kyndryl's management engaged in delaying vendor payments to shift cash flow from one fiscal quarter to the next, falsely presenting the quality and sustainability of cash generation, which could mislead investor decisions.
- Deficient Financial Disclosures: Kyndryl's financial disclosure procedures, accounting methodologies, and internal controls are claimed to be materially inadequate, raising concerns about the accuracy of its financial reporting and increasing investor anxiety regarding future profitability.
- Deteriorating Business Outlook: As a result of these issues, Kyndryl's business operations, financial condition, and prospects for profitable growth are believed to be significantly worse than publicly represented, potentially exposing shareholders to greater investment risks.
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- Fed Rate Decision Impact: The Federal Reserve's decision to maintain the benchmark rate at 3.5%-3.75% led to Kyndryl and Everforth shares dropping 3% and 2.8% respectively, indicating a heightened expectation of budget tightening among CFOs regarding IT expenditures.
- Budget Compression Trend: As the interest rate outlook hardens, discretionary IT spending is typically one of the first budget lines to compress, posing a significant risk to IT service firms reliant on multi-year enterprise transformation contracts, potentially leading to future revenue declines.
- Kyndryl Stock Volatility: Kyndryl's shares have experienced 21 moves greater than 5% over the past year, with its current price trading 73.3% below its 52-week high of $43.41 from July 2025, reflecting a pessimistic market outlook on its future performance.
- Dismal Investment Returns: Since its IPO in October 2021, Kyndryl's stock has plummeted 54.6%, meaning that an investment of $1,000 at the IPO is now worth only $284.29, highlighting the severe depreciation in investment value.
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