Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2026. Read them in this 18th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Dan Lawyer, Chief Product Officer of Lucid
The fear of missing out on AI is inescapable. In conversations with CIOs and technology leaders, the common sentiment is “We can’t afford to wait on AI, even if we don’t know the ROI.”
I understand the pressure these leaders face, but this short-sighted approach to AI transformation limits its full potential, including significant productivity gains and cost reductions. Currently, few companies have the foundation required to capture that value. Only 26% of knowledge workers describe their organization’s current AI efforts as mature, according to Lucid Software’s AI Readiness Report.
As organizations turn the calendar to a new year, the urgency to increase AI adoption will undoubtedly continue. But ROI will remain elusive unless organizations focus on establishing a solid foundation built on well-defined processes.
The AI Implementation Gap Narrows
A gap remains between agentic AI’s potential and organizations’ ability to adopt it effectively. While 39% of organizations have implemented AI agents, only 26% rate them as completely successful. AI is only as effective as the inputs it receives and how outputs are organized, shared, and connected across people, systems, and processes.
Over three in five workers (61%) believe their AI strategy is only somewhat or not at all aligned with operational capabilities. In 2026, I expect this number to drop due to a sharper focus on operational readiness for AI. Organizations will likely take a more thoughtful approach to AI adoption, and ramp up efforts to document and optimize processes, especially those that only exist in employees’ heads.
Workers Will Have a New Mandate: Process Documentation
The true differentiator for AI success by 2026 will not be the technology itself, but the maturity of an organization’s documentation and processes. End-to-end documentation, consistent information, and well-organized data repositories are critical and AI’s potential depends on leaders refining these processes across the organization.
Yet, just 16% of knowledge workers say their workflows are extremely well-documented, while nearly half (49%) of respondents cite undocumented or ad-hoc processes sometimes impact efficiency. Much of this knowledge lives in employees’ heads, with 46% of respondents saying they sometimes rely on institutional knowledge. AI cannot access this day-to-day information unless it’s formally documented.
The AI Readiness Report identified the three barriers to documentation at scale among knowledge workers: lack of time, lack of tools, and no clear ownership. Leaders will need to empower their teams to focus on the organization and versioning of data repositories to ensure the AI has a valid “source of truth” to operate from. It will require a major mindset shift: Instead of performing every task themselves, employees will allocate more time to keeping processes and documentation accurate. This unglamorous yet vital work will enable workers to complete tasks faster and boost overall productivity for the organization.
Developing and maintaining current, accessible information for AI will require buy-in from employees and the right toolsets. Products like Lucid’s Process Accelerator can help create a centralized, accessible knowledge base.
More Organizations Will Build A New Operational Muscle: Process Maturity
The top three needs to help teams adapt to AI are document collaboration (37%), process documentation (34%), and visual workflows (33%). A quick win can come from extracting low-level documentation from the systems where employees actually work, such as collaborative documents and diagramming and whiteboarding platforms, rather than relying on static databases.
Over time, these quick wins can help build toward the end goal of becoming a mature process organization. When teams can maintain a flawless, step-by-step playbook that reflects exactly how their part of the business runs today, their AI agents will flourish and generate the once-elusive ROI.
AI Success Requires More Upfront Preparation
To truly succeed in AI adoption, leaders must shift their focus from buying AI to preparing for AI, starting with process documentation. Autonomous agents can only execute functions correctly with a consistent, well-maintained information architecture. The most successful AI-driven organizations will invest in process maturity, allowing them to implement AI on top of a reliable dataset.
##
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan joined Lucid in 2019, having previously led product and design organizations at a variety of technology companies, including Adobe, Ancestry, and Vivint. During his 20 years in product leadership, Dan has developed a deep understanding of the art and science of experience design and is passionate about creating value by solving problems in delightful ways. Dan holds a B.S. in business information systems from the University of Phoenix.
