As with past waves of innovation, AI follows an inevitable path: new tech starts in the developer’s playground, then becomes the CIO’s headache and finally matures into a centrally managed platform. We saw that with virtualization, then with cloud, then with Kubernetes. AI isn’t the exception.
Application and business teams have been getting access to powerful generative AI tools that help them solve real problems without waiting for a 12-month IT cycle; that’s what generative AI has been doing so far. Yet, success breeds sprawl and enterprises are now dealing with multiple RAG stacks, different model providers, overlapping copilots in SaaS and no shared guardrails.
That’s the tension showing up in 2025 enterprise reporting — AI value is uneven and organizational friction is high. We have definitely reached the point where IT has to step in and say: this is how our company approaches AI — a single way to expose models, consistent policies, better economics and plenty of visibility. That’s the move McKinsey describes as “build a platform so product teams can consume it.”
