This article was originally published on Forbes Business Council by Donna P. Mitchell.
Technologies change. Failure rates don’t.
Research firms support what I’ve been seeing for decades: Most digital transformations fail to meet their objectives. McKinsey puts the success rate at less than 30 percent. Boston Consulting Group found that only 30 percent meet or exceed their target value. MIT’s research shows 95 percent of generative AI pilots fail to deliver measurable business impact. The numbers shift slightly depending on the study, but the pattern is the same, and it has been consistent for years.
Meanwhile, S&P Global found that 42 percent of companies abandoned most of their AI initiatives in 2025, up from just 17 percent the year before. Organizations are spending billions on it, and the failure rate is getting worse.
A pattern observed for decades
As someone who specializes in technology adoption and change management, I’ve seen this exact pattern repeat across every technology wave since the 1980s—IVR systems, electronic ticketing, enterprise platforms, healthcare technology and now AI and blockchain. The industries change. The technology changes. The failure rate stays the same.
Why? In my experience, the problem has never been the technology.
An EY survey found that 70 percent of respondents’ organizations lack well-defined AI
governance models. The World Economic Forum reported that 63 percent of employers (download required) identify skill gaps as the biggest barrier to transformation. And 89 percent of workers had concerns about AI’s impact on their job security, according to a January 2025 workforce study.
This shows me that it isn’t a technology crisis. It’s an adoption crisis.
Why the pattern persists
Organizations keep making the same fundamental mistake: They treat transformation as a technology project instead of a human adoption challenge. They invest in systems and underinvest in the people who must use them.
The systems I contributed to over four decades worked because adoption was built into the design from day one. My role wasn’t engineering; it was getting the right people in the room: operations, frontline users, even external partners. When implementation teams include the people who will use the technology, adoption stops being an afterthought and becomes an outcome.
But most organizations still separate “implementation” from “adoption.” They build the system and then try to convince people to use it. By this point, resistance had already set in.
Three questions that predict success or failure
Before any technological investment, executives should be able to answer three questions:
- What does this technology fix? Not what it could do in theory, but what specific operational problem does it solve? What phase of your operation does it enhance? If the answer is vague, the return on investment will be too.
- Who owns the outcome, and do they have the authority to change the process? When accountability is unclear, no one drives adoption. Technology becomes another system that exists without transforming anything.
- What is the human adoption path? How will employees move from their current workflow to the new one? What resistance should you expect? What training and support structures are in place? Technology that ignores human behavior doesn’t transform organizations; it frustrates them.
The real differentiator
The organizations that succeed—the 30 percent that actually achieve their transformation goals—don’t have better technology. They have better adoption strategies. They invest in governance before deployment. They build change management into the project plan, not as an afterthought. They understand that technology without adoption is just expensive shelfware.
The 70 percent failure rate isn’t inevitable. But avoiding it requires executives to stop treating transformation as a technology problem and start treating it as a human adoption challenge.
The pattern has been consistent, and so have the solutions. The question is whether leadership is willing to invest in adoption as seriously as they invest in technology. Because the organizations that move the fastest aren’t the ones with the newest technology. They’re the ones whose people use it.
About the author
Donna P. Mitchell is The Transformation Authority™, CEO of Mitchell Universal Network LLC, and an Official Member of Forbes Business Council. With 48 years of Fortune 500 experience across five industries — often as the only woman in the room — she helps organizations solve the human side of technology transformation. As an Executive Educator, she advises Fortune 500 executives, healthcare systems, and mission-driven organizations on closing the adoption gap. She hosts the Pivoting to Web3 Podcast, reaching audiences in 38 countries.
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