2025年技术债务清算：提升AI投资回报率的务实路径研究报告

A practical approachto boosting your AI ROI Contents Introduction..................................................2 From pilots to full-scale AI...............................6 Tech debt threatens to make AIimplementationunaffordable.............................7 Consensus on the risk,confusion on the fix............................................9 Treating tech debt as a corestrategic variable: First steps.............................10 Summary action guide......................................18 How IBM can help Clients can realize the potential of AI usingIBM’s deep industry, functional, and technicalexpertise; enterprise-grade technology For more information about AI services from IBMConsulting, visitibm.com/services/ For more information about IBM strategyconsulting services, visithttps://www.ibm.com/ For more information about AI solutions from IBMSoftware,visitibm.com/watson For more information about IT cost managementand technology business management services, Key The majority of organizations havetech debt but no map to address it. The goal isn’t debt-freeperfection, but debt by design.Approach each AI venture witha clear view of the liabilities it Only 18% of executives say stakeholders fully agreeon how to deal with technical debt. Ignoring tech debt cuts AI ROI.Factoring it in actually lifts returns. Enterprises that factor tech debt into AI business casesproject ROI that’s 29% higher than those that don’t,avoiding the 18% to 29% ROI drop that can sink Concentrating AI investments in a few domainsmultiplies returns, as debt fixes in one initiativeaccelerate others—turning targeted remediation Introduction Accounting for tech debt canboost AI ROI by 29% Most AI investment stories focus on the scale of deployment, thetalent, or the promise of foundational models. But a recent IBMInstitute for Business Value survey of 1,300 senior AI decisionmakers points to a different driver of success—one rooted not A new reckoning with tech debt means reframing it as a strategic variable in howorganizations plan and implement their first big bets on AI. This perspective ispowerful: organizations that fully account for the cost of addressing technical debt in That advantage reflects a deeper reality: in large enterprises, technical debt is notsomething you ever truly eliminate. Even as you create new AI value, you’re creatingnew debt alongside it. The goal isn’t debt-free perfection, but debt by design— A new reckoning with tech debt meansreframing it as a strategic variable in howorganizations plan and implement their The stakes are amplified by the scale of theinvestments underway. Overall IT budgets are setto rise from 5% to almost 9% of revenues by 2027,with AI’s share of total IT spending increasing from The timing matters. Enterprises are doubling downon AI: by 2027, it will consume 64% more than theshare of IT spending it did in 2024. Executives project The risk is that many of those projections still ignorethe cost of the technical debt AI inherits. Leave thoseliabilities out of the plan, and AI implementation So, enterprises have a choice—to account fortech debt in their AI business cases or not. Andthe consequences of that decision will be very Accounting for yesterday’s choices Technical debt is the cumulative consequence of past technology decisions—shortcuts taken, upgrades deferred, integrations postponed. It hides in aginginfrastructure, fragmented data architectures, and brittle code. For AI investments AI projects inherit the pre-existing conditions of the enterprise tech estate: datalocked in silos, incompatible systems, fragile infrastructure, and decision-makingfragmented across teams. When new AI initiatives get funded and launched withoutaccounting for the remediation required to address these conditions, projects take The first half of this report examines the risks of unaddressed tech debt—and, moreimportantly, how to confront them. We explore why technical debt threatens to make alarge organization’s first big bets on AI unaffordable, and we shine a light on a troubling The second half of this report focuses on solutions: reframing debt as a financialbarrier to business value, using debt-adjusted ROI to choose the best projects,accelerating ROI with complementary investments, and positioning enterprise IT as AI projects inherit the pre-existing Perspective Tech debt moves from chroniccondition to urgent strategic risk The AI race is changing that calculus. In a $20 billioncompany putting 20% of IT spend into AI, debt couldadd $120 million a year in implementation costs.That’s the kind of drain that can leave a three year AI For decades, technical debt has been treated asan operational nuisance—a CIO problem to bemanaged quietly in the background. That framing Executives see the urgency: Unaddressed techdebt: a multi-front From pilots to full-scale AI Budgets swell, expectations soar The shift from AI pilots and proofs of concept to enterpr