Lenovo says over 90% of AI pilots fail to reach deployment

Companies are ramping up AI spending amid fear of missing out, but Ken Wong, president of Lenovo’s Solutions & Services Group, said more than 90% of pilots fail to reach satisfactory deployment.

Lenovo’s report surveyed 3,120 tech and business leaders and found 96% planned to increase their AI spending over the next 12 months, with average budget growth expected to exceed 13%.

More than half of firms are actively exploring or deploying enterprise agentic AI, but the report said most are at least a year from large-scale adoption.

Over 80% of companies favor a hybrid approach that keeps AI workloads on local servers or at the network edge, according to the report.

🔗 Source: South China Morning Post

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Lenovo’s services arm aims to profit from AI deployment complexity

More than 90% of AI pilots fail to reach satisfactory deployment, a costly problem that Lenovo’s Solutions and Services Group (SSG) aims to fix 1.
SSG has shifted from hardware sales toward ongoing help, with managed services and solutions now close to 60% of total revenue 2.
To cut confusion, Lenovo offers “Lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage,” a library of pre-built AI options that can scale across teams and systems 3.
TruScale “as-a-service” (a subscription-style way to pay for IT) lets companies add AI infrastructure without large upfront capital investments, which reduces risk when results are uncertain 4.

Hybrid AI preference points to a shift toward on-premises and edge deployments that lifts device and infrastructure demand

Over 80% of companies favour a hybrid AI approach, which moves work away from cloud-only setups toward on-premises and edge computing (keeping workloads on local servers or at the network edge) 1.
This preference can drive equipment upgrades, since on-device AI often needs specialized chips such as neural processing units (NPUs) 4.
Windows 10 reaches end-of-life in October 2025, which pushes a large commercial PC replacement cycle toward AI-capable machines 4.
AI PCs already account for more than 30% of Lenovo’s total PC shipments, which makes the shift an active sales driver today 3.