IBM's Krishna: Be AI-First, Not AI-Enabled

At IBM Think, CEO Arvind Krishna declared the enterprise divide of the next decade won't be about AI adoption but about rebuilding operating models around it. He cited IBM's own $4.5 billion in productivity gains and warned leaders against staying stuck in pilots, urging them to make AI the business model itself. Krishna outlined three strategic vectors: AI-first operations, hybrid cloud as a sovereignty and flexibility backbone, and quantum computing as an emerging architectural priority. He positioned quantum not as distant science fiction but as an inevitable infrastructure layer enterprises should design for today by building modular, open AI platforms.