Why Systems Of Record Aren’t Enough In The Age Of AI

InnovationWhy Systems Of Record Aren’t Enough In The Age Of AIByAndy Kohm,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)Jun 12, 2026, 10:30am EDT​Andy Kohm is CEO of SCIP. gettyFor years, enterprise leaders have operated on the assumption that if you give people better data, they’ll make better decisions. That assumption is starting to crumble.​Organizations today have more data than ever. They have invested heavily in analytics platforms, dashboards and now AI tools layered on top of it all. And yet decision-making in many companies is still slow and reactive. Analysts spend 70% of their time collecting and reconciling data across systems rather than actually analyzing it. The tools keep improving, but the decisions are not getting faster.The AI wave was supposed to change that. Instead, it exposed how deep the problem goes. An MIT study of over 300 enterprise AI deployments found that 95% of pilots deliver zero measurable return. McKinsey’s 2025 survey of nearly 2,000 organizations found that almost two-thirds have not begun scaling AI across the enterprise, with data quality as the primary blocker. In supply chain, only 15% of professionals trust their own systems to produce clean data.The pattern is consistent: it is not the models that are failing. It is the foundation underneath them.​​The Next Enterprise CategoryEvery major wave of enterprise technology has been defined by a category. ERP systems became the systems of record for transactions. CRM systems became the systems of engagement for customer interactions.​Now, a new category is emerging: systems of intelligence. This is software that doesn’t just store what happened or display what’s going on. It tells you what to do next.​A system of record can tell you a component exists. A system of intelligence can tell you that the component is at risk, what alterna...