AI’s Impact on IT

In this episode of the “Gen AI Breakthrough” podcast, Kyle McNabb and Joe Nathan discuss how IT organizations are evolving to enable AI adoption across enterprises while transforming their own operating models. They explore the critical role IT plays in scaling AI responsibly, redefining governance, functions, and roles, and leveraging AI to enhance IT operations and development efficiency.

Welcome to The Hackett Group’s “Gen AI Breakthrough” podcast, where top experts give actionable artificial intelligence (AI) insights, expert advice and strategies to achieve breakthrough business performance. This episode is hosted by Kyle McNabb, vice president of Research and leader of Technology Advisory at The Hackett Group. He is joined by Joe Nathan, associate principal in Hackett’s Technology Transformation practice. The conversation focuses on how information technology (IT) teams are enabling AI throughout the organization, and how IT organizations are leveraging AI to evolve their operating models.

To begin, Joe highlights the increasing interest of business leaders in AI, as they seek ways to integrate it into their products and applications. There is a common misconception that AI belongs solely to IT, but in reality adoption requires joint ownership between business and IT teams. AI offers numerous benefits, including automation, productivity enhancement, cost reduction and improved decision-making. However, it must be implemented correctly to ensure security, efficiency and seamless data integration. IT plays a vital role in scaling AI responsibly by ensuring security, standardization and proper integration within enterprise systems. Without proper IT oversight, business teams may implement disparate AI solutions that lack consistency.

As AI adoption grows, IT operating models must evolve. While AI is often seen as purely a technology function, IT’s role is to enable business transformation through AI. This requires changes in IT’s structure and approach. The Hackett Group evaluates IT operating models across five key dimensions – functions, resources, governance, process and technology. Among these five dimensions, defining the right functions is the most critical step because it sets the foundation for resources, governance, processes, and technology. Organizations must determine how AI fits within existing IT functions, such as AI architecture, AI proof of concept (POC) management and AI standards. Without clear functions, AI initiatives may lack direction and scalability.

Organizations often struggle with stagnation after updating their IT operating model for AI. AI implementation is an evolving process that must mature over time. The Hackett Group identifies three stages of AI maturity within IT operating models – experimentation, scaling and democratization. Companies achieving breakthrough performance have progressed beyond the center of excellence stage and embedded AI practices directly into business functions. This shift allows AI to drive meaningful transformation at scale. Beyond enabling business teams, AI is also revolutionizing IT organizations themselves. IT teams are using AI to enhance their efficiency broadly classified into two major areas – operations and engineering and development. By integrating AI, IT organizations reduce development timelines, improve software quality and reallocate resources to more strategic initiatives.

IT organizations are undergoing significant transformations as AI adoption accelerates. In IT operations, traditional roles such as IT help desk analysts are shifting toward managing AI platforms that automate these tasks. The result is a more stable, secure and cost-efficient IT infrastructure. The most profound changes, however, are occurring in engineering teams. AI-powered code generation is redefining the role of developers, with many shifting toward curating and managing AI platforms rather than writing code manually. As a result, fewer developers are needed for traditional programming tasks, and senior developers or architects play a more prominent role in prompting AI systems to generate high-quality code efficiently.

The podcast concludes with an overarching insight: AI will not replace IT professionals, but those who effectively use AI will replace those who do not. IT professionals must embrace AI to remain competitive because organizations that integrate AI effectively will gain a significant edge in productivity, efficiency and innovation.

Time stamps:

• 0:12 – Welcome to this episode hosted by Kyle McNabb.

• 1:16 – The role of IT in AI enablement and scaling.

• 4:19 – The IT operating model and AI adoption.

• 8:48 – AI maturity and scaling AI in organizations.

• 11:47 – How AI is transforming IT operations and development.

• 15:48 – How IT organizations are evolving with AI adoption.

• 19:25 – Final thoughts – the future of IT and AI.