The message from Fortune's AIQ Summit at the New York Stock Exchange was blunt: large companies are not getting value from AI because technology alone is not enough.
The clearest divide, according to ServiceNow's Diana David, is on workforce investment. She said 57% of the top-ranked 'Pacesetter' companies are investing in upskilling employees on AI, compared with just 4% of companies outside that top bracket. She also said 68% of Pacesetters have plans to attract, hire, and retain AI talent, versus 10% of the rest.
The discussion kept returning to the same point. Futurist Amy Webb said many companies are failing to see enterprise-wide returns because they are not training people to use the technology well. Webb described what she called 'learned helplessness' in large organizations, comparing it to taxi drivers who have become dependent on GPS and can no longer even type an address into the phone themselves.
Drew Holler, chief human resources officer at Lennar, said employees also have to take responsibility. 'We're going to give you all the tools, but it's your responsibility to upskill yourself as well,' he said. 'We're going to give you trainings, but you, as an individual, have to upskill.'
Webb said the key traits for the AI era are flexibility and adaptability, not just being 'AI native.' Danielle Gonzalez, chief people officer at Palo Alto Networks, echoed that view and said the company is looking for agency, fast learning and the ability to unlearn old assumptions.
Gonzalez said Palo Alto Networks now uses 'observable interviews' and hackathons to assess candidates, trying to see how a person solves problems in real time instead of relying on static interviews.
The summit also showed a tension inside the modern corporation. Executives were more focused on deployment than on governance, and some speakers said an overemphasis on risk can block returns. Webb said there is often a disconnect between CEOs and boards on one side, and CISOs and chief risk officers on the other, when it comes to deciding how fast to move.
For free enterprise, the lesson is simple. Capital rewards clear rules, but it also rewards capable people. AI may be sold as a machine story, yet the bigger question inside large companies is whether management can build a workforce that uses tools instead of waiting for them to do the work. In that sense, the market has already voted: the firms that invest in productivity, training and accountability are the ones most likely to turn AI into earnings.
