This is the first blog post in our new quarterly Bold Stances series, which provides Forrester’s unique, in-depth perspective on timely topics.

Periods of uncertainty often push companies toward caution, shelving innovation in favor of preserving stability. Yet the past five years have been an era of unrelenting upheaval — from the pandemic’s seismic disruptions to economic and geopolitical instability. The lesson is clear: Innovation can’t be paused indefinitely. Technology executives must strike a bold balance, continuing to invest in forward-looking capabilities — particularly in AI — to emerge stronger and ahead of competitors.

AI will soon permeate every core business system, as well as the custom solutions that give your business a competitive edge. Though tariffs may slow down AI advancement, AI-led transformation is inevitable. CIOs must stay laser-focused on AI readiness, using this period of economic volatility to shore up their AI foundations.

Focus On The Fundamentals

For many companies, now isn’t the time to chase the biggest or flashiest AI applications. Particularly if your company is in low-growth or cost-cutting mode, you’re better off prioritizing what will scale. Taking stock of your current AI readiness and bolstering these foundational pillars now will pay off by giving you the flexibility to pivot to pursue future growth opportunities:

  • Data quality and governance. The quality and availability of your data ultimately determines what you can and can’t do with AI. Work toward a modern data platform that ensures that all your enterprise data — both structured and unstructured — is clean, consistent, trusted, and accessible. Strengthen data governance by establishing guardrails and policies for data access, usage, storage, and retention.
  • A secure, scalable infrastructure. No matter where you run AI — in the cloud, on-premises, on the edge on PCs — you’ll need a clean, scalable infrastructure that provides the compute power, storage, and networking resources needed to support your specific use cases. Shedding redundant or unused capabilities is a vital starting point to gaining a more efficient and secure tech stack that bolsters your AI readiness.
  • A defined AI strategy. Your AI strategy and the use cases you pursue will stem from your company’s business objectives. Keep both the short and long term in mind: During the current economic volatility, for instance, prioritize AI projects that have measurable returns and provide reusable capabilities.

A Necessary Mindset Shift

For tech leaders who have been pursuing ambitious AI projects, a back-to-basics focus may be an adjustment. We’ve heard from companies in consumer packaged goods, transportation, and other industries that are temporarily scaling back aggressive plans for robotics in favor of simpler (and faster-to-deploy) automation. Abrupt changes in direction can be hard to digest, particularly when they mean postponing the “exciting” work. But they also present an opportunity.

As businesses adapt to the economic climate, tech leaders can redefine how they add value. By shifting your IT style to one that emphasizes operational excellence, efficiency, and resilience, tech organizations can give the business what it needs while paving the way for AI readiness.

This entails the messy but necessary work of (finally) consolidating and rationalizing your tech portfolio to weed out duplicative or unneeded systems and applications. It also means revisiting contracts and consolidating or negotiating where possible. Lastly, but critically, it means doubling down on security. Security hygiene is always critical — and even more so at a time of widespread layoffs and increased insider risk.

A Good Foundation Won’t Crumble

Shoring up your AI readiness now will give you speed and flexibility later. We learned this lesson during the COVID-19 pandemic — the companies that had been strengthening their foundations all along were the ones that were able to pivot to remote work and stand up new omnichannel capabilities most easily. We’ll see a similar story with AI once the current volatility subsides. Companies that have continually made the investments will be positioned to jump out ahead.