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Introduction
Kyndryl is a leading provider of mission-critical enterprise technology services offering advisory, implementation and managed service capabilities to thousands of customers in more than 60 countries. As the world’ s largest IT infrastructure services provider, Kyndryl designs, builds, manages and modernises the complex information systems the world depends on.
The company co-creates, innovates and implements solutions with its customers, optimising technology investments through industry expertise, prescriptive insights and alliances partnerships.
Kyndryl continues to support its customers in the Middle East and beyond at a time when organisations are under increasing pressure to strengthen the resilience and reliability of their mission-critical systems. Companies are preparing for potential risks as new challenges expose readiness gaps.
The Kyndryl Readiness Report 2025 examines this level of preparedness in greater detail; combining insights of 3,700 leaders from 21 countries with data from Kyndryl Bridge, the company’ s AI-powered business platform, to show the real-world IT and workforce strategies that get businesses ready for the future.
The latest report outlines the paradox that although businesses in the UAE remain optimistic about their readiness, leaders acknowledge systemic obstacles, with 91 % stating that they struggle to keep up with the pace of technological advancement and 26 % citing complex technology environments as a barrier to scaling investments.
Adib Kilzie, Consult Leader for Kyndryl in the Middle East and Africa, delves into the findings in depth – offering his take on the fact that 70 % of UAE organisations report increased pressure to demonstrate ROI on AI investments compared to last year. Yet AI adoption remains largely experimental, with 66 % stating their innovation efforts stall after proof-of-concept and 67 % citing foundational issues in their technology stack as a major barrier. He highlights this as an inflection point for UAE organisations – one where accelerating AI ambitions must be matched by modernised infrastructure, upgraded cybersecurity and coordinated workforce development to achieve sustainable transformation.
Kilzie draws comparisons between the Readiness Report 2025 and CXO Priorities’ Digital Technology Survey at GITEX 2025, commissioned in collaboration with Kyndryl. The survey spotlights digital technology priorities for CIOs and the wider C-suite looking ahead; exploring current infrastructure models, Digital Transformation investment and adoption of emerging trends and technologies.
Both surveys reveal important insights into AI spend. While the GITEX report found that organisations are prioritising AI and ML investment over the next 12 months, Kyndryl notes that although AI investment is rising alongside expectations, many
By Alix Pressley, Director of Strategic Content & Head of Content APAC
organisations remain challenged to move from experimentation to enterprise-wide transformation.
Beyond investment, a confidence gap is also emerging in security. Drawing on the findings, where 86 % of leaders reported experiencing a cyber-related outage this year, Kilzie argues that security failures rarely occur at the perimeter – they fail in operations.‘ Automate for scale’, he explains, is not about efficiency alone, but about absorbing volatility and building operational resilience.
When organisations fully understand the impact of a cyberattack, he notes, the strategy shifts from attempting to prevent every incident to engineering resilience directly into the operating model.
Ultimately, this is the mindset organisations must carry forward. Preparation across technology, governance and security requires a long-term vision; one where readiness is embedded from the outset rather than retrofitted in response to disruption.
Kyndryl’ s continued commitment to supporting its customers in achieving such growth objectives remains central to its strategy – helping organisations translate investment into resilience, transformation and sustained competitive advantage.