Introduction: A new industrial revolution at our doorstep
We stand at the threshold of a new era in business. Over the past decade, companies raced to embrace digital enablement – the hallmark of Industry 4.0 – automating processes, harnessing data, and connecting via the cloud. Now, the rise of advanced artificial intelligence is ushering in Industry 5.0, where human ingenuity and AI capabilities fuse together.
Industry 5.0 is focused on harnessing the synergy of human brainpower and AI to create a workforce of “cobots” (collaborative robots) that are perceptive and aligned with human goals.
In simpler terms, it’s about elevating technology from a support tool to a strategic collaborator in every facet of the business. For C‑Suite leaders in B2B SaaS and fintech, this shift isn’t just another tech trend – it’s a fundamental transformation that will define the winners and losers of the next decade.
Transitioning from the digital playbooks of Industry 4.0 to the AI-enabled enterprise of Industry 5.0 is no longer optional. Industries 1.0 through 4.0 happened whether we were ready or not – and Industry 5.0 will happen as well.
The question for CEOs and their C‑suite teams is: Will you lead this transformation, or be left behind by it? This article explores why evolving to AI enablement is a strategic necessity for sustained revenue growth, talent retention, and market relevance – and how the CEO and C‑suite must spearhead this evolution with a unified vision and execution.
From Industry 4.0 to 5.0: Digital foundations to AI superpowers
Industry 4.0, the Digital Revolution, gave us smart factories, automation, and data-driven decision-making. It digitised operations and streamlined workflows. But as powerful as digital enablement has been, it has primarily optimised existing processes.
Industry 5.0 goes a step further – it melds human creativity with AI’s exponential power to reimagine processes altogether. This isn’t about replacing people with machines; it’s about augmenting every team and function with AI-driven insights and capabilities. The outcome is a business that’s faster, more agile, and hyper-personalised in how it operates and serves customers.
Crucially, Industry 5.0 is human-centric. The European Commission defines it as leveraging advanced tech while ensuring the well-being of workers and society.
In practice, that means AI isn’t an isolated skunkworks project or a shiny new tool for IT – it’s embedded across the organization to amplify human talents. Customer-facing teams use AI to predict needs and tailor solutions; operations teams use AI to anticipate and prevent inefficiencies; product teams co-create with AI to innovate faster.
The C‑Suite’s role is to champion this integration. The CEO must set a bold vision that AI will be as transformational in the 2020s as digital was in the 2010s, and likely even more so. We can draw a historical parallel: over 40 years ago the internet was born, and those who capitalised on it (Amazon, Apple, etc.) attained trillion-dollar valuations and rewrote industries. AI now presents a similar inflection point. Leaders who think too small or move too slowly risk their companies’ competitiveness.
The C‑Suite’s Mandate: Lead the AI transformation or fall behind
It’s clear that AI enablement is the next frontier – but are companies actually moving in that direction? Research suggests a gap between awareness and action. Nearly all companies today are investing in AI, yet only 1% of business leaders feel their organisation is “mature” in AI deployment – meaning AI is fully integrated into daily workflows and driving substantial outcomes.
In fact, almost all employees (94%) and C‑suite leaders (99%) report some familiarity with generative AI tools, according to McKinsey’s 2025 workplace report, but true transformation remains elusive. Why? The biggest barrier isn’t the technology or the front-line workers – “the biggest barrier to scaling is not employees (who are ready) but leaders, who are not steering fast enough”. This is a stark call-out: if the ship isn’t turning toward AI enablement, it’s the bridge (the C‑suite) that must course-correct.
The CEO’s role is to set the vision and urgency for AI as a strategic priority. No longer can AI be seen as an R&D experiment or a siloed initiative. It must be woven into the fabric of the business strategy. The CEO, as the transformation leader, articulates how AI will fuel competitive advantage and rallies the organisation around this vision. The rest of the C‑suite then become enablers of execution:
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The COO ensures operational processes are redesigned to incorporate AI, from supply chain to customer service.
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The CFO allocates investments into AI projects and talent, and establishes metrics to track AI’s impact on efficiency and revenue (treating AI not just as a cost center, but as a value creator).
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The CRO/CMO (Heads of Revenue and Marketing) drive the use of AI in go-to-market functions – leveraging AI for better customer targeting, personalised marketing campaigns, pricing optimisation, and sales forecasting.
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Even roles like the CHRO (HR) play a part by fostering a culture of innovation and continuous learning so that employees embrace AI tools rather than fear them.
In short, the entire C‑suite must act as a united front in leading the company’s evolution to an AI-enabled enterprise. This unity is critical; AI transformation cannot succeed if, say, the CTO is enthusiastic but the CFO won’t fund it, or if the COO is automating ops but the CRO is still using guesswork for sales strategy.
A recent Harvard Business Review analysis of AI adoption noted that companies struggle when there’s no systematic approach driven from the top – pockets of AI success don’t translate into organization-wide change. C‑suite alignment ensures that AI initiatives are not disjointed experiments but part of a coherent transformation roadmap.
Competitive Advantage: Why AI enablement is mission-critical
Beyond the tech buzz, the strategic necessity of AI enablement boils down to survival and growth. Early movers are already outperforming laggards.
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that “AI leaders” (the top ~26% of firms who have advanced AI capabilities at scale) have achieved 1.5× higher revenue growth and 1.6× greater shareholder returns over the past three years compared to their peers. These leaders treat AI as the core of their business, not as a side project. They integrate AI into both cost optimisation and revenue generation efforts, and set ambitious targets such as significant new revenue streams from AI-driven products and services.
The payoff is tangible: higher ROI and more scalable solutions. Notably, AI leaders also focus heavily on people and processes, investing about 70% of their AI effort into workforce enablement and change management (versus only 30% on the algorithms and tech). This underscores that competitive advantage comes from coupling cutting-edge tech with an organisation prepared to use it.
For B2B SaaS and fintech companies, where innovation cycles are rapid and competition fierce, AI can be the differentiator that keeps you ahead of the curve.
For example, fintech firms are using AI to detect fraud in real time and underwrite loans with greater accuracy, delivering both cost savings and improved customer trust.
Software companies are embedding AI into their products (think AI-driven features in CRMs or cybersecurity platforms) to increase customer value.
But internally, these same companies must also use AI to turbocharge their go-to-market engines – analysing customer data to spot new opportunities, automating routine sales tasks, and tailoring customer success outreach with predictive insights.
The risk of not embracing AI is becoming unthinkable. In a new BCG survey of over 1,400 C-level executives, 66% of leaders admitted they are ambivalent or dissatisfied with their company’s progress in AI so far. Their reasons? Lack of talent and skills (cited by 62% of those surveyed), unclear AI roadmaps, and no strategy for scaling AI responsibly.
In other words, many leaders know they haven’t moved fast or decisively enough – and they’re feeling the pressure. As BCG’s CEO put it, “This is the year to turn GenAI’s promise into tangible business success… when technology is changing so quickly, it can be tempting to wait and see. But with GenAI, the early winners are experimenting, learning, and building at scale.”
Waiting is a dangerous strategy. While one company hesitates, a competitor is deploying an AI-enhanced product recommendation engine or an algorithmic pricing model that will lure away customers.
Moreover, AI enablement links directly to sustained revenue growth and market relevance. In the BCG study, 85% of executives said they plan to increase spending on AI in 2024. The pie is getting bigger – AI is projected to add trillions in productivity to the global economy, so if your organisation doesn’t claim its slice, a more tech-savvy competitor will.
This is mission-critical to revenue: the companies that successfully weave AI into their strategy expect dramatically higher AI-driven revenue in the coming years, and even are reinventing business models to capitalise on AI.
Simply put, adopting AI at the core of your business is becoming synonymous with staying in business.
Upskilling and talent: The human element of AI success
Ironically, in this AI revolution, people become more important, not less. Every executive knows that strategy means nothing without execution, and execution rests on the people on the ground. You cannot fully realise AI’s value if your workforce isn’t prepared and empowered to use it. This is why workforce upskilling is a pillar of AI enablement – and a key concern for the C‑suite.
Right now, there is a major skills gap. While C‑suite leaders overwhelmingly believe AI will boost productivity (96% agree on this), nearly half of employees say they are unsure how to leverage AI tools to achieve those productivity gains.
In fact, 77% of employees using AI tools report increased workloads, not less. A sign that many organisations have introduced AI tech without properly training staff on new ways of working. The result can be frustration and lost opportunity. To turn this around, executives must invest in comprehensive training and change management.
This means not just one-off workshops, but ongoing learning programs, clear communication on how roles will evolve, and incentives for employees to experiment and innovate with AI.
Some forward-thinking companies are already taking bold steps on this front. Financial data giant S&P Global, for example, launched a program to upskill all 35,000 of its employees in generative AI skills.
Partnering with Accenture, they are rolling out training so that every worker, from analysts to salespeople, can effectively leverage AI in their job. Why? Because they recognise that “an AI-ready workforce… must be created”; it won’t materialise on its own.
This echoes what we see in industry surveys: as of late 2023, only 6% of companies have trained more than a quarter of their employees on GenAI tools.
The companies that do invest in widespread upskilling are pulling ahead. In BCG’s analysis, the “AI winner” companies were systematically upskilling their people – over 20% of organisations investing $ 50 M+ in AI had trained >25% of their workforce, far above the norm. These firms understand that talent is the linchpin of transformation.
Beyond pure performance, there’s another reason upskilling is vital: talent retention and attraction. Top performers want to work at companies on the cutting edge, where their skills will remain relevant. If your organisation is seen as stagnating in outdated processes while the world moves to AI, you risk a brain drain.
Conversely, if you create opportunities for employees to learn AI skills and advance their careers in new directions, you become a talent magnet. The C‑suite should view AI training as an investment in human capital that yields loyalty and engagement. People don’t want to be automated out of a job; they want to be automated into doing their job better.
A key mindset here is to position AI as a “copilot” for your teams – an assistant that can handle grunt work, surface insights, and support decision-making, freeing up your people to focus on higher-value activities. When employees see AI taking drudge tasks off their plate and helping them shine, they embrace it. It is up to leadership to foster this narrative and provide the tools and training to make it a reality.
Building an AI-enabled Go-to-Market engine: Cross-functional alignment
One area where the fusion of human and AI potential can truly ignite growth is in the go-to-market (GTM) strategy. For B2B tech companies, go-to-market execution is inherently cross-functional, spanning marketing, sales, customer success, product, and operations. Yet many companies suffer from siloed teams and misaligned objectives in these areas.
Enter AI, coupled with a robust GTM methodology, as a solution to break down those silos. By providing a common data-driven “brain” that all teams can draw on, AI can unify efforts from creating customer demand to closing deals to expanding accounts.
This is where Arise GTM’s proprietary Go-to-Market methodology comes into play. Designed explicitly for cross-functional GTM alignment and AI-driven strategy, the ARISE framework provides a roadmap to integrate AI across the customer lifecycle.
Arise GTM’s approach starts by assessing your current GTM strengths and gaps, then researching market and customer insights deeply, ideating bold strategies, and strategising an execution plan, before finally executing with precision (all while iterating based on data).
Each step is enhanced by AI analytics and automation tools, ensuring decisions are grounded in data and teams stay coordinated. For example, during the Assess phase, AI can analyze your CRM and marketing automation data to find drop-off points in your funnel or segments with untapped potential.
In the Research phase, AI might surface customer sentiment trends from thousands of feedback comments or benchmark competitors’ digital footprints.
When you Ideate, AI tools can generate campaign ideas or sales plays tailored to the insights gathered.
The Strategise phase then uses predictive models to forecast outcomes of different GTM tactics (helping executives choose a plan with the highest ROI), and in Execution, AI assists in real-time lead scoring, personalisation, and even conversational AI for customer interactions.
The power of this approach is two-fold: it drives efficiency and alignment through technology, and it enforces a common methodology across functions. Marketing, sales, and customer success are no longer operating on different playbooks, they share one AI-informed game plan.
Arise GTM’s methodology essentially acts as a translator and glue between the C‑suite’s strategic vision and the day-to-day actions of go-to-market teams.
By plugging into systems like CRM (e.g., HubSpot) and deploying AI in workflows (like automated reporting, AI-driven content, and sales enablement tools), the ARISE framework makes sure strategy isn’t just a document on a shelf but a living, breathing process executed collaboratively.
Moreover, Arise GTM emphasises measurable ROI and continuous learning. In a world where 74% of companies have yet to see tangible value from AI efforts, having a disciplined GTM engine that directly links AI initiatives to revenue outcomes is a game-changer.
Imagine being able to attribute a lift in conversion rates or an improvement in customer retention to specific AI-driven interventions in your GTM cycle. This closes the loop and justifies further investment.
Importantly, Arise GTM isn’t just about technology; it’s guided by expertise. The consultancy’s founder, Paul Sullivan – author of Go To Market Uncovered – literally wrote the playbook on sustainable revenue in B2B tech, emphasising how to align marketing, sales, and customer success around a unified strategy.
In his book and practice, Sullivan highlights the eight key pillars of GTM and how each can be supercharged with data and AI. By partnering with a firm that has deep GTM domain knowledge and a proven framework, C‑suite leaders can de-risk their AI transformation.
Arise GTM acts as a trusted guide, ensuring that the AI tools adopted actually serve the strategy (and not the other way around), and that each C‑suite stakeholder – CEO, COO, CFO, CRO, CMO – has visibility and input into the transformation of the go-to-market engine.
The C‑Suite in action: A unified narrative for AI evolution
To successfully evolve from digital enablement to AI enablement, the C‑suite must tell a unified transformation story – both inside and outside the company. Internally, this narrative aligns every department with the mission of becoming an AI-enabled organisation.
Externally, it signals to investors, customers, and the market that your company is embracing the future. Let’s paint a quick picture of what this looks like in practice, tying together the roles and elements we’ve discussed:
The CEO stands up at the next all-hands meeting and lays out a bold vision: “Our company will become an AI-powered leader in our industry, enhancing everything we do – not by replacing any of you, but by equipping all of you with smarter tools and insights. This is how we will continue to win in the market.”
She backs this up by citing that nearly 92% of companies plan to increase AI investments in the next three years, and that for us, standing still means falling behind. She might share a quick example of a competitor or an industry peer using AI to great effect, underscoring the need to act now.
The COO, CFO, and CRO then echo this message through their teams with concrete plans. The COO might unveil a roadmap for AI integration in key processes (like using AI to predict supply chain disruptions or optimise resource allocation in service teams).
The CFO explains upcoming budget shifts – perhaps a consolidation of spend from legacy systems to new AI platforms – and how we’ll measure success (e.g., targeting a 10% efficiency gain or a specific cost savings figure, noting that already 54% of leaders expect AI to drive cost savings in the first year of serious adoption).
The CRO and CMO jointly announce an AI-driven account-based marketing initiative, where marketing and sales will use a shared AI analytics dashboard to identify the best prospects and tailor outreach, aiming to boost pipeline conversion by, say, 20%. This one-team approach reinforces that everyone is rowing in the same direction.
Across the board, the Chief People Officer (CHRO) or HR lead might launch an AI skills accelerator program for all employees (similar to S&P Global’s approach), emphasising that the company is investing in its people to prepare them for the future.
They can highlight that lack of AI skills is often cited as the top barrier in other companies, but not in ours – here, we grow our talent. Such moves not only build capability but also trust: employees see that the C‑suite is not just paying lip service to AI but is actively enabling them to succeed in this new era.
This unified narrative should also extend to how the company talks to customers and partners. C‑suite leaders can share how AI initiatives will improve customer experience – for example, the CTO might discuss a new AI-powered feature that dramatically speeds up the client onboarding process, or the Chief Customer Officer (if one exists) might share that customer support will soon have AI co-pilots, leading to faster response times and proactive issue resolution. These aren’t just tech upgrades; they’re part of a larger story of the company’s evolution to deliver greater value.
Throughout this journey, Arise GTM acts as an extension of the C‑suite’s strategic braintrust, helping to adjust sails as data comes in. If a particular AI use case isn’t delivering the expected value, the methodology calls for a pivot – maybe focusing on a different GTM pillar or tweaking the model with new data.
The key is that the transformation is managed actively and dynamically, with the C‑suite continuously in the loop. It’s this agile, aligned leadership that turns AI from a buzzword into real competitive advantage.
Embracing AI enablement for sustained success
We are living through a moment of profound change, one that requires visionary yet pragmatic leadership. Evolving from digital enablement to AI enablement is about more than adopting new technology; it’s about reimagining how your business operates at every level. For the C‑suite, the mandate is clear: champion this evolution or risk irrelevance.
The CEO must be the torchbearer of transformation, and the entire C‑suite must coordinate to turn that vision into reality on the ground. This shift is not a “nice to have” – it is mission-critical for sustained revenue growth, talent retention, and market relevance.
The good news is that those who invest and execute wisely stand to gain immensely. AI-enabled organizations can capture new markets, delight customers in novel ways, and run leaner and smarter than ever before.
They become magnets for top talent and command respect in the market. The data is on the side of bold action: companies that successfully integrate AI are already outperforming financially, and nearly every competitor is planning to double down on AI – the only real question is who gets it right first.
As one Deloitte leader aptly put it, “Industry 5.0 will be fueled by minds, not just machines.” It’s the creative application of AI by forward-thinking teams that will set the winners apart.
For tech companies wondering how to navigate this complex journey, you don’t have to go it alone. With a trusted guide like Arise GTM – a firm that not only brings a proven cross-functional GTM methodology but also the hard-won experience of building AI-enabled growth engines – the path becomes clearer.
Paul Sullivan, the founder of Arise GTM and author of Go To Market Uncovered, has distilled a playbook that bridges strategy and execution, ensuring that AI adoption is aligned with business goals at every step. Leveraging such expertise can accelerate your transformation and help avoid common pitfalls.
In the end, the transition to AI enablement is as much a leadership journey as a technology journey. It calls for the C‑suite to be learners, evangelists, and orchestrators of change. The opportunity before us is to not only digitise what we do, but to redefine what we can do by partnering human wisdom with artificial intelligence.
Those CEOs and C‑suite teams who embrace this challenge will not just keep pace with the times – they will shape the future of their industries. The next industrial revolution is here; it’s time to lead it from the front.
Sources: Research and data cited from McKinsey mckinsey.com, mckinsey.com, BCG bcg.com, bcg.com, Deloitte www2.deloitte.com, and industry case examples ciodive.com , as linked above.
