Korea Business Review
Korea Business Review

digital-innovation

Successful AX: What and How to Succeed — 5 Conditions That Determine Performance

Despite rising adoption rates, only a minority of companies are achieving tangible results from AI Transformation (AX). While South Korea's domestic AI adoption rate stands at 37.1% (65.1% for large enterprises, 35.6% for small and medium-sized enterprises), and about 90% of global companies invest in AI, only around 40% actually achieve financial performance. The core of successful AX is not introducing tools, but redesigning workflows themselves, backed by data preparation, governance frameworks, and employee readiness. Pre-defining measurable performance indicators allows pilots to scale enterprise-wide, and for SMEs, it is more realistic to start small with their 'most painful task' rather than mimicking large corporations. Ultimately, AX is not a technology project but an organizational transformation project, and the winners are determined by organizations that systematically build the fundamentals: workflows, data, governance, people, and measurement.

강지혜 선임기자Published 2026년 7월 18일Updated 2026년 9월 3일
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Successful AX: What and How to Succeed — 5 Conditions That Determine Performance

Despite rising adoption rates, only a minority of companies are achieving tangible results from AI Transformation (AX). While South Korea's domestic AI adoption rate stands at 37.1% (65.1% for large enterprises, 35.6% for small and medium-sized enterprises), and about 90% of global companies invest in AI, only around 40% actually achieve financial performance. The core of successful AX is not introducing tools, but redesigning workflows themselves, backed by data preparation, governance frameworks, and employee readiness. Pre-defining measurable performance indicators allows pilots to scale enterprise-wide, and for SMEs, it is more realistic to start small with their 'most painful task' rather than mimicking large corporations. Ultimately, AX is not a technology project but an organizational transformation project, and the winners are determined by organizations that systematically build the fundamentals: workflows, data, governance, people, and measurement.

Why AI Adoption Rates Are Rising While Results Vary — Four Success Conditions: Workflow Redesign, Data, Governance, and People AI Transformation (AX) is no longer a buzzword for a specific industry; it has become a fundamental premise of corporate management. As generative AI evolves beyond document summarization and drafting into agentic AI—where systems independently plan and execute tasks—the very way businesses work is being redesigned. However, results do not necessarily follow the speed at which adoption rates are rising. Many companies fail to experience financial results despite investing in AI, and this gap stems not from technological capability, but from how organizations execute. Based on domestic and international data, we examine what successful AX is and what needs to be done to achieve it. Adoption Is Up, But Results Vary First, it is necessary to look at reality accurate…

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