Across Ireland and globally, organisations are investing heavily in technology transformation programmes. From platform replacements to new core systems, these initiatives are reshaping how organisations operate.
KPMG’s Breda O’Callaghan explores how organisations can leverage AI in transformation programmes.
Yet as with AI more broadly, a familiar challenge is emerging. While organisations are adopting AI within transformation programmes, many are struggling to scale beyond early experimentation.
Large-scale transformation programmes are, by nature, complex. They involve multiple stakeholders, new systems, and significant organisational change. Increasingly, they also involve AI – embedded across processes, systems, and delivery models.
But in practice, AI within transformation is often approached in a fragmented way. It may be introduced as part of a specific technology implementation, layered into tools used by delivery teams, or adopted by individuals seeking productivity gains. Each of these can deliver benefits. However, they rarely combine into a single, coherent transformation narrative.
As a result, organisations can find themselves making significant investment decisions without a clear view of how AI is shaping outcomes. Transformation programmes move forward, but the role of AI within them remains unclear and under-optimised.
For many organisations, the issue is not a lack of ambition. It is a lack of clarity on how AI fits into the end-to-end transformation story.
In many cases, AI is still viewed primarily as a tool for individual productivity – often equated with copilots or digital assistants that help people perform day-to-day tasks more efficiently. This is a natural starting point, but it limits the scale of impact.
At the same time, organisations are still working through fundamental decisions about their technology landscape – what to build, what to buy, and how systems should integrate. This uncertainty can slow progress and make it harder to embed AI in a deliberate, scalable way.
This is compounded by delivery pressure. In many sectors the public sector and utilities as an example, organisations are facing increasing demand to deliver large transformation programmes at pace. Funding is secured, expectations are high, and the focus then shifts very quickly to execution.
In that environment, AI is often applied tactically – used to accelerate delivery, improve efficiency or reduce manual effort. While this is valuable, it can limit the opportunity to step back and consider how AI could fundamentally reshape how a programme is designed and delivered.
Over time, this creates a ceiling on what transformation can achieve. AI is present but not fully leveraged as a driver of change.
The actions required are practical and rooted in how transformation programmes are designed and delivered.
Organisations making the most progress tend to share common characteristics.
Crucially, they recognise that scaling AI requires intention. It is not enough to enable access to tools and simply hope that value emerges organically.
The focus on value is intensifying as businesses move beyond early experimentation phases, and ask the harder questions about impact, scalability, and return.
At the same time, many remain in the early stages of maturity. AI strategies are often still evolving, and most organisations have yet to fully reimagine their processes through an AI lens.
The challenge ahead is clear: move from purely tactical use to deliberate, enterprise-wide transformations.
AI is no longer separate from transformation – it is part of how transformation itself happens.
The question to ask is whether AI is being actively designed into your programmes to deliver meaningful outcomes, or whether it remains an add-on, applied incrementally at the edges.
The businesses that succeed won’t be the ones who merely adopt AI the fastest, but the ones who embed it most deliberately – as part of a clear, end-to-end vision for how their organisation operates and delivers.
For organisations wanting to unlock that value, KPMG’s AI consulting team can help you harness the full power and potential of AI with speed, agility, and confidence.
