Published: Oct 17, 2025
AI can only go as far as Digital Resilience allows
Across Asia-Pacific, organisations have invested heavy in AI pilots, tools, and talent, but many still struggle to see sustained returns. The reason isn’t a lack of innovation, it’s a lack of digital resilience. Without strong foundations in cybersecurity, governance, infrastructure, and responsiveness, AI stalls before it can scale. What organisations need is a way to measure their AI readiness so they can scale AI securely, reliably, and responsibly.
That’s why NCS launched the AI+DR Matrix, a framework that measures an organisations AI maturity and their digital resilience - the frameworks they need to accelerate AI at scale.
Key takeaways
- AI is everywhere, but most organisations still struggle to turn pilots into real business results.
- Success depends less on the AI itself and more on having strong digital foundations, things like security, reliable data, and resilient systems.
- Organisations with these foundations get far better returns, while the majority remain stuck experimenting without scale.
- Those getting the most value from AI stand out because they integrate AI with resilience across their operations, while others are held back by weak infrastructure or legacy systems.
- Closing the resilience gap is the next big step for turning AI from hype into long-term competitive advantage.
AI today is everywhere, in headlines, boardrooms, and countless pilot projects. Yet its impact on productivity and business performance remains limited, echoing Nobel Laureate Robert Solow’s remark from the 1980s that you can “see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.”
Across Asia-Pacific, governments and enterprises have invested heavily in AI. But while pilots have multiplied, the results have often been inconsistent — with little measurable improvement in revenue growth, efficiency, or service transformation.
To better understand why, NCS launched a global survey built around the AI+DR Matrix, a framework that measures both an organisation’s level of AI adoption and its digital resilience. The framework maps organisations into four quadrants: AI Dust, Missed Opportunity, House of Cards, and Game Changers, helping leaders see whether they are simply experimenting or building AI that lasts.
NCS AI-Digital Resilience Matrix
Figure 1: NCS AI-Digital Resilience Matrix, the 3 AI Adoption and 5 DR dimensions, and the 4 quadrants.
Since 2024, NCS has worked with IDC to look past surface measures like adoption rates or model accuracy. Instead, the focus has been on the foundations that decide whether AI succeeds or stalls — things like cybersecurity, governance, data flows, infrastructure, and responsiveness.
The 2025 AI+DR Readiness Survey captured these factors across 870 organisations in 17 countries and 11 industries, providing one of the most detailed views yet of how prepared enterprises really are to scale AI.
Figure 2: Global survey conducted by IDC on the current state of AI and DR across various industries.
Significant correlation between the extent of AI adoption and the strength of Digital Resilience
Figure 3: Significant correlation between the extent of AI adoption and the strength of Digital Resilience.
The survey made one point clear: AI success depends less on the algorithms and more on the strength of the systems around them. Organisations with stronger digital foundations consistently performed better with AI.
- On average, every US$1 invested in GenAI returned US$2.20.
- Organisations with strong digital resilience achieved up to 3.7× ROI.
- The top 10% of “Game Changers” reached US$3.70 for every US$1 invested.
The lesson is simple: digital resilience is not just protection, it’s a performance multiplier.
Figure 4: Most companies are in early stages of AI adoption ("AI Dust" quadrant), and have yet to strike the right balance between investments in AI and DR.
Another key finding: most organisations are still far from scaling AI.
- More than 80% are in the “AI Dust” quadrant, experimenting with pilots but lacking the resilience to grow beyond them.
- Only 6% have reached “Game Changer” status, where AI and resilience work together to deliver consistent, enterprise-wide value.
This gap shows why resilience is the missing piece between ambition and impact.
What sets Game Changers apart
The survey showed that the biggest difference between leaders and laggards is resilience across five dimensions:
These are not add-ons. They are the operational foundations that allow AI to adapt, scale, and endure.
Uneven readiness across regions and industries
The survey also revealed clear differences in AI+DR readiness by geography and industry.
Figure 5: AI+DR patterns vary across (a) countries and (b) industries
Geography: Developed markets, including the United States (24.2%), Australia (10.0%), Singapore (6.3%), and Hong Kong have more Game Changers thanks to mature infrastructure, stable policies, and sustained investment. Developing economies, such as China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines remain stuck in AI Dust, held back by weaker infrastructure and policy gaps.
Industry: Financial services and telecommunications are frontrunners, investing heavily in strong data, infrastructure, and governance. By contrast, sectors like leisure remain over-represented in AI Dust, often constrained by legacy systems, fragmented data, and poor integration.
The pattern is clear, organisations with strong digital foundations turn AI ambition into competitive advantage. Those without strong digital foundations risk staying stuck in cycles of pilots and stalled impact.
From AI Dust to durable advantage
Reaching the Game Changer quadrant takes more than enthusiasm for AI — it requires a clear strategy and disciplined execution. The survey showed that performance varies widely across organisations, meaning there is no single starting point.
To address this, NCS offers a tailored suite of solutions across all AI+DR dimensions. Rather than a one-size-fits-all toolkit, these offerings enable targeted interventions to close specific digital resilience gaps and accelerate AI’s enterprise-wide impact.
Figure 6: Using the AI+DR matrix to decide on the pathways for achieving sustainable AI value.
Closing the resilience gap
Today, more than 80% of organisations remain stuck in “AI Dust”, running pilots but struggling to scale impact. This isn’t a technology shortfall; it’s a resilience gap.
Closing that gap means strengthening five areas:
- Cybersecurity to protect models, data, and pipelines.
- Trusted data that is governed, interoperable, and reliable.
- Resilient infrastructure that can scale and withstand disruption.
- Seamless integration so AI delivers tangible business outcomes.
- Real-time responsiveness to monitor, adapt, and optimise performance.
These are not just IT upgrades. They are strategic levers that turn AI from experiments into long-term competitive advantage.