The pressure is already real
Mid-size businesses are not entering a calm market. In 2025, 30.36% of medium-sized EU enterprises used at least one AI technology, compared with 55.03% of large enterprises.
That gap matters because it suggests larger firms are already pulling ahead in practical adoption. For a mid-size company, the question is no longer whether AI matters. It is whether the business is organised well enough to use it reliably.
What AI actually needs
OECD research makes the constraint plain. Before firms adopt AI, they often need digital technologies that systematically gather data from business processes and from customer and supplier interactions; the same report states that high-quality, sufficiently voluminous data are essential to create, test, evaluate and validate AI models.
It also identifies weak digital and data readiness, including poor interoperability between equipment, as a repeated barrier to adoption.
Why compliance is too small a frame
Harmonisation means agreeing what core data means across the business. Interoperability means systems can exchange and use that data without manual repair. That is not clerical work. It is an operating design.
If customer, product or pricing records are defined differently in CRM, ERP and service systems, AI tools inherit the inconsistency.
An example is agentic commerce: an AI buying assistant can only compare offers properly when product and pricing data are described in a consistent way. The practical implication is straightforward: better harmonisation gives AI a cleaner foundation.
What leaders should do now
Start with the few records that drive revenue, service and risk. Standardise those definitions, fix the hand-offs between systems, and assign ownership for data rules.
Treat harmonisation as a growth decision, not a paperwork exercise. If your core data does not line up, your AI strategy will not either.
The AI advantage will not come from tools alone. It will come from how well businesses connect their systems, data, and operations.
That is the work Hui Newnham focuses on at Big Ideas Foundry. Follow Hui on LinkedIn for more insights on AI strategy, interoperability, and building AI-ready businesses, or book a free strategy call to explore where your business stands today.
