Crisis in 'digital dexterity' threatens AI investments

A new study shows that 92 percent of IT leaders believe the new era of digital transformation will increase digital friction and that less than half (47 percent) of employees have the requisite digital dexterity to adapt to technological changes.

The report from digital employee experience (DEX) specialist Nexthink, based on a survey of 1,100 IT decision makers worldwide, shows a further 88 percent expect workers to be daunted by new technologies such as generative AI.

With IT spend set to reach $5.61 trillion in 2025, and $644 billion on generative AI alone, it's clear that solving digital friction and improving the employee experience must become a priority, or risk undermining the impact of investments. Yet despite this 42 percent of IT leaders admit they struggle to put exact monetary value on AI investments, while 93 percent want to improve their ability to identify underperforming investments.

"Organizations are spending trillions on IT to digitally transform, but without their people on board, it's a fast track to failure," says Vedant Sampath, CTO at Nexthink. "Too many employees are left grappling with unfamiliar AI tools because they lack digital dexterity: the ability to confidently embrace new technologies. IT teams, meanwhile, are flying blind without visibility into where things are going wrong. Transformation isn't just about rolling out new tech; it's about enabling people to use it effectively. If businesses don't end this digital dexterity crisis, they'll end up with cutting-edge AI tools -- but a workforce that can't use them. That's a one-way ticket to watching AI investments go up in smoke."

Respondents expect to see a 43 percent rise in the volume of applications being used over the next three years. In fact, 66 percent report that their organization rolls out a new application, tool, or platform every month. But this rapid expansion is stretching IT teams to breaking point, with 69 percent admitting there are too many users in the organization for IT to provide adequate adoption support for everyone. Without proper guidance, application rollouts suffer, leading to lower productivity (61 percent), reduced collaboration (51 percent), increased IT support tickets (46 percent) and higher employee dissatisfaction (46 percent).

To keep up with the pace of change, IT leaders are clear on the need to improve digital dexterity across the workforce. 96 percent want to enhance their ability to accurately identify users' digital friction, while 96 percent say they need to enhance digital adoption support to help employees adapt to AI, with 95 percent highlighting that tailored DEX)insights are more essential than ever.

"Digital transformation lives and dies by the employee experience," addsSampath. "If IT teams can't effectively guide employees through adoption, businesses will never unlock the full value of their investments. DEX is no longer a nice-to-have; it's business critical. Without it, IT leaders will struggle to measure impact, let alone maximize returns, and risk seeing their transformation efforts stall before they even get off the ground."

The full report is available on the Nexthink site/

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