Market study: AI’s productivity potential recognised—but organisations hesitate to transform their business
Organisations strongly believe in artificial intelligence as a driver of productivity, according to a market study conducted by the Nordic business technology company Sofigate. However, most organisations have yet to achieve genuine business transformation as AI initiatives have remained isolated and small in scale.
In the spring of 2025, Sofigate conducted a market study using in-depth interviews to investigate organisations’ experiences with artificial intelligence.
The findings reveal that 74% of respondents believe AI will improve business productivity within the next two years. Yet, only 6% report having successfully transformed their business across unit boundaries using AI.
Numerous AI projects are underway but benefits so far are mostly limited to individual productivity (30% of respondents) and team-level improvements (12%).
“AI is not just a technology initiative—it is a full-scale organisational transformation. Isolated pilot projects on an individual level are not sufficient if the goal is to achieve a sustainable leap in productivity. What is needed now is strong leadership and bold decisions—a significant cultural shift. The transformation can be swift if you focus on solutions rather than challenges and lead all functions that generate value to customers in unison,” says Lassi Kurkijärvi, Executive CTO at Sofigate.
Key barriers: leadership and investment capability
The challenges in leveraging AI do not stem from technology maturity, but rather a lack of leadership and the capacity to invest. A technology-led approach has driven organisations to focus on improving isolated functions, while the overall business model remains untouched.
According to the study, the greatest benefits are realised when AI is embedded in business-critical technology platforms. Organisations that have integrated AI into their platforms report productivity-enhancing outcomes more often than those relying on fragmented experiments.
“In choosing technology, it is wise to stand on the shoulders of giants—to leverage global business platforms. This enables a clearer view further into the future and faster access to the latest AI capabilities. Global giants invest billions into their platform development. Through them, AI benefits are realised more quickly, user experience is enhanced, and compliance requirements are easier to meet,” says Juha Kujala, Executive CTO at Sofigate.
Expectations for AI impact are largely focused on improving specific functions, such as customer service, production, HR, finance, and IT. However, the potential to increase value creation across the entire business receives far less emphasis in the responses.
Press contacts:
Anna de Torres, Chief Marketing Officer, Sofigate
anna.de.torres@sofigate.com
+358 50 576 6015
About the study
The Leap in Productivity & AI market study was conducted from 28 February to 3 April 2025 through qualitative interviews with 35 senior leaders. The respondent group consisted of experienced and strategically operating leaders in top management roles in their organisations. The diverse group of organisations broadly represents Finnish business and the public sector. Some of the organisations operate internationally or in global markets. The full report is available here.
About Sofigate
Sofigate is the leading Business Technology company in the Nordics. We create value fast by combining our transformation expertise with low/no-code platforms and generative AI. In practice, that means helping our customers develop the interplay between business and technology: to design, build and implement transformations and business-friendly technology solutions, like Salesforce, ServiceNow and SAP.
We are the founder of the Business Technology Forum, the developer of the Business Technology Standard. Our team of 800+ professionals are spread across 9 offices in 6 countries: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, and Poland.
Sofigate is a privately owned growth company with net sales of EUR 147 million in 2024. Learn more about us at sofigate.com.
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