Reality check: A recent poll of 6000 CEOs and senior business leaders across all sectors found that 95% have seen zero positive impact from AI over the last three years. But at the same time, we are seeing huge strides forward in sectors like health care where AI is being in hundreds of highly focused, practical ways to save lives and reduce cost.

Notes on infrastructure keynote for Financiera Nacional de Desarrollo in Colombia with thanks also to HiCue Speakers.

Here is the shocking truth about business strategy in large organisations. 70% fail to deliver as hoped for, especially where large-scale change management is needed. In recent AI initiatives the failure rate has been even higher. For example, a recent survey of 6000 CEOs and senior executives found that 95% of companies had failed to see any benefit from their AI investment over the last three years.

There are multiple reasons for these high levels of failure which include unexpected changes in markets, customer expectations and behaviour, lack of focus on business fundamentals, unclear or over-ambitious objectives, poor cost control, failure to manage risks, and different parts of the business pulling in different directions.

But the core reason is often a disconnect between corporate strategy and how team members actually feel, whether they really believe in it all: involved, committed, engaged.

I've been predicting trends for global companies over the last 30 years - here's why they keep inviting me back.

It's easy to be swept off balance by one media headline after another, and miss what's really important for the future.

Yes the world can feel increasingly chaotic and uncertain, but beyond the media frenzy the truth is that for most corporations, the fundamentals that have driven their growth and success over the last 20-30 years will continue to do so.  

Yes of course the world changes, but strange as it may seem, most of those changes are relatively predictable.

Take electric vehicles - goodness me, Futurists like myself predicted over 20 years ago that after a slow start, they would become increasingly important, and eventually dominate. 

TIMING is what really matters

Indeed, most debates in board rooms today are not so much about what is going to happen, but is about TIMING.

By when will most new e-vehicles in Paris be e-powered? By when will most short journeys in cars be driven by AI? By when will the Russian-Ukraine fighting cease - even if into a kind of frozen conflict? By when will China's GDP become the largest in the world? By when will we have effective antiviral treatment against things like COVID, flu or common colds?

Yes of course we should make the most of new tech like AI - indeed my latest book How AI Will Change Your Life has been a best-seller in airport bookshops globally for a year now.  But at the same time we need a big dose of common sense. A reality check.

I've been predicting trends for the largest companies in the world as well as for governments for around 30 years now.  And here's the big thing.

Megatrends endure through decades

Many of the mega-trends I described in Futurewise back in 1998, and in other books like The Future of Almost Everything in 2015 are still driving change today. 

That's why companies keep inviting me back.  I've just returned from New York, speaking to 80 of the most senior leaders of one of the world's largest insurers - and I covered a huge range of issues including:

- Conflicts in various regions currently

- How trade tariffs etc with the US are likely settle and why

- How our world will rebalance with the rise of Asian economic power over the next 20-30 years

- Longer term impact of AI on workplace and our daily lives

- Impact of health care innovation and robotics / AI on life expectancy and well being

But here's the important thing. The reason I was in New York was because of a keynote I gave to the insurance industry around 20 years ago, and because the person who invited me, whose meeting it was, heard me back then, read my books and decided that TODAY, most of what I predicted back then had indeed happened. 

So then - let's look ahead, beyond the current frenzy....

Some say this is a fools job - no one can see the future. Right and wrong.

Wrong because if that was really the case, no board could ever sign off on a 3-5 year strategy let alone longer term investments.

Right because there will always be sudden and disruptive events that cannot be forecast. But the point is that events come and go, but megatrends remain. We saw that in the global economic crisis over 15 years ago, and more recently after COVID.

20% of all ops in UK are robot-assisted already, which will rise to 95% by 2035. This is just a small part of the AI revolution taking place across health care, which will save 10 million lives a year by 2035. - 25% reduction in operative time - 30% decrease in intraoperative complications - 40% increase in surgical precision - 15% shorter recovery time - 20% higher surgeon workflow - 10% cut in healthcare costs.