Genpact and analytics firm HFS Research have released a new global study.The $18 trillion opportunity: How 4 corporate debts can make or break the future of AIwe identified four interconnected corporate “debts” that are preventing organizations from realizing their true value.
The study surveyed more than 2,000 business executives across 16 industries and 14 sectors and found that the Global 2000 companies have nearly $18 trillion in recoverable enterprise value. The study defines corporate debt as “the shackles that accumulate on a business due to outdated technology, poor data quality, inefficient processes, and unprepared people.” These four liabilities compound each other and create unnecessary limitations on a company’s performance.
“Resolving these debts is the biggest underutilized performance opportunity in business today,” said Balkrishan ‘BK’ Kalra, President and CEO of Genpact, an agent and advanced technology solutions company that leverages process intelligence and artificial intelligence to deliver measurable outcomes. “You can’t innovate beyond a broken foundation. Understanding exactly where these debts exist and how to resolve them requires context-rich process intelligence. This is why our core belief is, ‘There is no artificial intelligence without process intelligence.'”
In fact, the report states that resolving a company’s debt could result in approximately 8% faster annual revenue growth and 16% lower annual costs. With nearly 13% of average feature spend now going to AI, the gap between ambition and foundation has never been more costly.
Of the leaders surveyed, 85% said corporate debt significantly limits the value of AI, but more than half did not have a financial plan to address it. With enterprise data currently only 33% AI-ready, approximately 40% of employees’ weekly time spent on inefficient or manual processes, core enterprise systems on average 10 years old, and employees only 32% AI-ready, it’s clear that something needs to be done. And in terms of pace.
Addressing the $18 trillion opportunity
HFS and Genpact applied respondent-reported revenue growth and cost savings estimates to the entire Global 2000 total revenue base to calculate the total “value at stake.” Of this total, process debt and data debt each represent approximately $7.7 trillion of total opportunity.
Phil Fersht, Founder and CEO of HFS Research, commented: “AI is exposing all the weaknesses that businesses have endured for decades. Poor process discipline, fragmented data, legacy technology, and talent shortages are no longer operational issues; they are now direct barriers to growth, productivity, and competitiveness.”
Despite the scale of the opportunity, more than 50% of companies are not moving forward with their debt resolution efforts through financing. In fact, only 6% of respondents have established a resolution program at scale, but with measurable results. After all, corporate debt isn’t just a technology issue; it’s also a performance issue that limits growth, increases costs, and undermines the value of AI. Most companies realize they are not ready. We need to take more action.
Genpact was recently named a Rising Star for Modernization and AI/ML Enablement Services in ISG’s 2026 Provider Lens Assessment of Databricks Ecosystem Partners. Genpact differentiates between modernization and migration by incorporating data product engineering, semantic modeling, and agent integration into the transformation program rather than positioning it as downstream enhancements.
