Artificial Intelligence for business is entering a new phase. After several years of experimenting with generative AI, assistants and copilots, organizations are starting to shift their focus. The priority now is to turn this technology into tangible business impact.
Data from our local market reflects this evolution. According to the 4th BNEW New Economy Observatory 2026, developed by the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona based on responses from 1,792 professionals, AI already has a direct impact on 99% of participating organizations. For 49%, that impact is already considered high or very high.
The same trend can be seen across the Catalan business landscape. According to ACCIÓ’s 2026 Innovation Barometer for Catalonia, 30.4% of Catalan companies with more than nine employees invested in Artificial Intelligence in 2025. This compares with 24% in 2024 and 12.6% in 2023.
At the Spanish level, data from the National Observatory of Technology and Society (ONTSI) shows that 20.5% of companies with 10 or more employees used AI technologies in 2025. Among large companies, that figure rises to 57.5%.
From experimenting with AI to embedding it into the business
Adoption is growing. The next challenge is to move beyond isolated business AI initiatives and embed AI into an organization’s data, processes, products and knowledge. The real leap is from experimenting with AI to making it a sustainable business capability.
As we explored in Implementing AI in business: what every CIO should review before deployment, this goes far beyond technology. It also requires organizations to address governance, integration with existing systems, scalability and impact measurement.
At the same time, the rise of AI agents is expanding what is possible. We are no longer talking only about systems that generate content or answer questions. Agents can access information, connect to tools and databases, interpret multiple sources and take action.
At Quantion, we see five key areas where Artificial Intelligence can deliver real business impact.
1. AI for better decision-making
Companies have access to more data than ever before. The challenge is turning that data into useful knowledge that enables better decisions at the right time. Artificial Intelligence can change how people interact with information across an organization. It can make data easier to access and help teams interpret large volumes of information.
With AI agents, this capability takes on a new dimension. Agents can connect to different sources and databases. They can also bring information together and help identify patterns, anomalies or unexpected situations. Connecting data, business context and AI is essential for building truly data-driven organizations.
In From data to decisions: how AI enables data-driven organizations, we explore this evolution in greater depth. A solid data platform combined with Data Agents can make information easier to access and turn business questions into actionable insights. The goal is not to replace human decision-making. It is to help people understand what is happening and make decisions with greater context, speed and accuracy.
2. AI for more efficient operations
AI-powered automation represents another major opportunity for businesses.Every organization has tasks and processes that take time, create friction or require significant manual effort. Artificial Intelligence can take on part of this workload. It can also work with many different types of information. AI is not limited to structured data. It can interpret documents, conversations, images and other sources.
This makes it possible to move beyond rule-based automation towards systems that can interpret information, understand context and adapt to different situations.
Greater efficiency, fewer low-value tasks
Efficiency is one of the main reasons businesses in our market invest in innovation. According to ACCIÓ’s 2026 Innovation Barometer for Catalonia, 64.7% of innovative Catalan companies expect innovation to improve their efficiency. In addition, 47.1% expect it to increase productivity.
AI agents can take this evolution a step further. They can coordinate different tools and actions within the same process. As a result, automation is no longer limited to individual tasks. It can begin to support processes that require interpreting information, completing intermediate steps and interacting with different systems. The opportunity is to simplify operations, reduce low-value work and free up time, allowing people to focus on activities where they can contribute the most value.
3. AI for creating more value for customers
Artificial Intelligence for business does not only create impact inside an organization. It can also transform the relationship between a company and its customers. For years, people have had to adapt to interfaces, menus, forms and processes defined by technology. AI enables a different kind of interaction. Systems can better understand each user’s intent, context and needs. This opens the door to experiences that are more natural, personalized and relevant.
From efficiency to better customer experiences
The potential goes beyond reducing costs or improving service efficiency. AI can help increase the value delivered to customers and improve their experience. This can have a positive impact on satisfaction, loyalty and retention. Personalization, intelligent assistants and natural-language interfaces are changing how people interact with digital products and services.
AI is therefore not just about making an existing customer experience more efficient. It also makes it possible to create new ways of engaging with customers and design services that were not possible before.
4. AI for unlocking knowledge and enhancing content creation
Much of a company’s value lies in the knowledge it has accumulated over time. That knowledge lives in documents, projects, processes, presentations, proposals and systems. It also lives in the experience of the people across the organization. One of the biggest opportunities for AI in business is to make this knowledge more accessible, reusable and useful.
Specialized agents can play an important role here. Instead of relying on a single general-purpose model, organizations can use agents with different areas of expertise and capabilities. These agents can collaborate and bring the right knowledge into play at the right time.
Much more than content generation
This evolution also changes how we think about AI-powered content creation. It is no longer simply about asking a model to generate a piece of text. The real potential comes from combining organizational knowledge, context and expert capabilities.
AI can become a new layer for accessing an organization’s collective knowledge. It can connect information that was previously scattered across people, teams and systems. For knowledge-intensive businesses, this combination could become one of the most strategically valuable applications of Artificial Intelligence.
5. AI for transforming the software development lifecycle
AI in software development is another area where the technology can have a broad impact. However, reducing this transformation to faster code generation only captures part of the opportunity. The real potential lies in applying Artificial Intelligence across the entire digital product development lifecycle. This includes planning, requirements and design, execution, validation, deployment, and ongoing operation and monitoring.
Each phase involves different people, tools, information and decisions. A significant part of a team’s effort is also spent carrying context from one phase to the next. Each team needs to understand what has already been defined and turn it into useful information to move the work forward.
Connecting every stage of development
AI, and AI agents in particular, can help connect these stages more effectively. They can also help preserve context and ensure that each team has the information it needs. This gives us a broader way of looking at Artificial Intelligence. It is not simply a copilot for specific technical tasks. AI can become a capability that supports the entire process of building and evolving a digital product, while helping to reduce friction between stages.
The goal is not simply to develop software faster. It is to improve how people, knowledge and technology connect throughout the development lifecycle. Better connections between stages can reduce time and enable a smoother transition from the initial idea through to the operation of the final product.
From AI adoption to real business impact
These five areas reflect the same broader shift. Artificial Intelligence is moving from being an isolated tool to becoming increasingly embedded in how organizations operate. Our local market shows that this transition is already underway.
AI adoption among Catalan companies rose from 12.6% in 2023 to 30.4% in 2025. At the same time, the ecosystem around the technology continues to grow. ACCIÓ identifies nearly 500 companies specializing in AI in Catalonia, generating more than €2.155 billion in aggregate revenue and employing close to 14,500 professionals. The 4th BNEW New Economy Observatory 2026 also suggests that investment will continue. 80% of participating companies intend to keep investing in innovation.
The next step for businesses
Not every organization has the same priorities, nor does every company need to move at the same pace. The value of Artificial Intelligence for business will depend on identifying the areas where three factors come together: business impact, technological feasibility and the organization’s ability to adopt and scale change. The next stage is not about accumulating more AI pilots. It is about turning Artificial Intelligence into a real business capability.
A capability connected to an organization’s data, processes, knowledge, products and people. That is when AI stops being just another technology and starts becoming a true driver of business transformation.
