IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: AI-Fueled Organization in APAC, 2026

AI has moved from the periphery of the technology agenda to the center of enterprise strategy, yet scaling AI remains challenging. Many organizations continue to struggle to translate investments into measurable business value, and the rapid rise of agentic AI is adding a new layer of complexity to deployments. The AI-fueled organization is one in which strategy, governance, people, and technology are orchestrated so that intelligence is embedded across the operating model rather than confined to isolated pilots, supporting the full spectrum of AI technologies, including descriptive, interpretive, predictive, generative, agentic, and physical AI.This IDC study presents the Asia/Pacific results from IDC's MaturityScape Benchmark AI Survey, released in May 2026 across 1,900 organizations worldwide, of which 790 are based in Asia/Pacific. It is the updated edition of IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: AI-Fueled Organization Worldwide, 2025 (IDC #US53271725, March 2025) and applies the framework set out in the 2026 definition report IDC MaturityScape: AI-Fueled Organization 2.0 (IDC #US54450625, April 2026). The most significant change this year is the elevation of governance to a distinct fourth dimension alongside strategy, people, and technology, recognizing that trust, risk management, and responsible AI practices have become prerequisites for scaling AI. The benchmark assesses enterprise maturity across five stages and four dimensions, intended to guide line-of-business leaders, C-suite executives, and the IT and data organizations that enable the AI agenda, helping them understand where they stand relative to peers and prioritize moves that accelerate progress the most. Key findings in this benchmark study are:Only 2.5% of organizations in Asia/Pacific have reached the most mature optimized stage, and just 9.3% have progressed to the two most advanced stages (managed or optimized), both below the worldwide averages of 3.1% and 12.8%, respectively. Becoming an AI-fueled organization is achievable, but in Asia/Pacific, it remains a sustained journey rather than the product of a single deployment.Two-thirds of organizations in Asia/Pacific (65.9%) remain in the two least mature stages (i.e., ad hoc and opportunistic), which is a heavier concentration than the worldwide figure of 61.3%, underscoring how much foundational work in strategy, governance, and data still lies ahead before AI can deliver enterprisewide value across the region.Asia/Pacific's mean maturity score rose only modestly to 2.35 in 2026 from 2.29 in 2025, which trails the worldwide mean of 2.43. The near-flat result suggests that while the AI market is evolving at extraordinary speed, execution in the region is not keeping pace. The broad middle remains stuck in the early stages even as expectations, tooling, and competitive pressure escalate. The bright spot is at the top, where the share of organizations reaching the optimized stage climbed from 0.2% to 2.5%, which evidence that a small leading cohort in Asia/Pacific is beginning to separate from the pack even as the broad middle advances slowly.