By 2030, the enterprises that look most advanced today may be the ones in the most trouble. Early AI investment has produced disconnected initiatives, conflicting data pipelines, and systems that don’t reflect how the business actually operates – what looked like innovation was really accumulation. Enterprises now have a narrow 12–18 month window to close this gap before it becomes permanent.
The answer isn’t another platform, pilot, or AI tool. It’s orchestration – the discipline of aligning platforms, data, AI, and people toward shared business outcomes. At the center of that discipline is the orchestrator: the leader or function with the visibility and authority to make that coordination happen across the enterprise.
In our latest thought leadership report, The Orchestrator: Who’s Conducting Your Enterprise?, completed in partnership with IBM, Futurum Research examines why AI capability has outpaced enterprise coordination – and lays out the three stages of orchestration maturity, real-world case studies from Riyadh Air, Nestlé, and IBM’s own Client Zero initiative, and what it takes to name an orchestrator with real authority.
In this report, you will learn:
- Why AI capability has outpaced enterprise coordination – and why orchestration, not another platform or pilot, is the answer
- The three stages of orchestration maturity: fragmented, connected but not orchestrated, and orchestrating at scale
- How Riyadh Air, Nestlé, and IBM’s own Client Zero initiative turned AI and platform orchestration into measurable business outcomes
- Which leadership role – COO, CIO/CTO, Chief AI Officer, or Chief Transformation Officer – is best positioned to own orchestration, and what it takes to make the role real
If you are interested in learning more, be sure to download your copy of The Orchestrator: Who’s Conducting Your Enterprise? today.
Author Information
Mitch Ashley is VP and Practice Lead for the CIO & Technology Buyers and Software Lifecycle Engineering practices at The Futurum Group. A multi-time CIO and CTO with 30+ years leading technical organizations, Mitch built and operated production systems spanning cybersecurity for the U.S. Department of Defense, PKI services for the broadband and 5G industries, SaaS platforms, large-scale telecom and banking systems, and a national broadband network. His work with AI began early, developing expert systems that diagnosed and repaired complex mainframe environments. That operator foundation grounds his analysis in operational consequence, covering the technology buyer's world of software engineering, cybersecurity, DevOps, cloud, and AI.
