Artificial intelligence is changing how organizations make decisions, allocate resources and respond to opportunities. But as the business environment becomes more dynamic, how should organizations adapt the way they execute strategy?

Artificial intelligence is moving beyond experimentation and into the core of business operations. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 found that 86% of employers expect AI and information-processing technologies to transform their businesses by 2030. At the same time, the Forum identifies resilience, flexibility and agility among the core skills expected to remain important as organizations adapt to technological and economic change.

This combination creates a strategic challenge.

Organizations can use AI to process information faster, identify patterns and support decisions. But they still need the organizational capability to translate those insights into action.

And when the assumptions behind a strategy change, execution may need to change with them.

This is where agile strategy execution becomes particularly relevant.

AI can accelerate decisions. What happens next?

AI can give organizations access to new sources of information and new ways of working. Yet adopting AI does not automatically translate into better organizational performance.

A peer-reviewed study published in the International Journal of Information Management examined data from 205 supply-chain executives in the United States and found that AI assimilation was associated with organizational agility, customer agility and firm performance. The researchers also found that organizational and customer agility partially mediated the relationship between AI assimilation and firm performance.

The finding suggests that the organizational response to AI matters alongside the technology itself.

More recent research reinforces the connection. A 2025 study in Industrial Marketing Management examined 246 B2B firms in Australasia and found that AI-enabled systems can support innovation through improved decision-making performance, while strategic agility plays a significant role in the relationship between AI adoption, decision-making and innovation.

The implication for strategy professionals is straightforward: AI may improve the information available for decision-making, but organizations still need the ability to respond effectively to what that information reveals.

Agile does not mean changing strategy every time something changes

Agility is sometimes reduced to the idea of moving quickly or changing direction whenever something new happens.

For strategy execution, that interpretation is too narrow.

Agility can instead mean having a structured way to sense changes, evaluate their implications, take action and adjust implementation while maintaining strategic direction.

Consider an organization that launches a strategic initiative based on a particular customer process. Six months later, an AI capability makes part of that process significantly faster or less expensive. The strategic objective may still be valid, but the initiative supporting it may no longer be the most effective way to achieve it.

An execution-oriented organization needs to be able to recognize that difference.

Recent research supports this broader view of agility. A 2025 study published in Industrial Marketing Management found that organizational learning can contribute to strategic agility in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments, with the researchers emphasizing continuous learning, decentralized decision-making and adaptability.

Agility, therefore, is not simply about speed. It is about the organization’s capacity to respond intelligently to changing conditions.

The execution problem is also a coordination problem

Strategy does not execute itself.

A systematic review in the European Management Journal describes strategy implementation as a dynamic and complex process through which managers and employees turn strategic plans into reality. The review identifies managerial actions, organizational conditions and dynamic managerial capabilities as important elements of effective implementation.

That means execution involves considerably more than approving a strategic plan.

People need to understand what the strategy means for their work. Resources need to be aligned with priorities. Different functions need to coordinate their efforts. Leaders need to monitor progress and intervene when implementation begins to diverge from strategic intent.

This becomes even more important when technology is changing rapidly.

A peer-reviewed study on strategy implementation and organizational agility found that organizational agility can influence managerial discretion, which in turn supports strategy implementation and unit performance.

In practical terms, organizations need enough structure to maintain strategic alignment—but enough flexibility to allow decision-makers to respond when circumstances change.

What should organizations actually monitor?

This is where performance measurement enters the picture.

A strategy needs more than objectives and initiatives. Leaders also need evidence that implementation is moving in the intended direction.

KPIs can provide that visibility.

When appropriately connected to strategic objectives, KPIs can help organizations monitor implementation, identify performance gaps and determine where management attention may be required.

In a rapidly changing environment, however, measurement should not become purely retrospective.

A significant change in a KPI can prompt a broader strategic question:

Does the original plan still make sense?

This creates a feedback loop between strategy and execution. Performance information does not simply tell an organization whether it achieved a target; it can also provide evidence for deciding whether an initiative, resource allocation or implementation approach needs to change.

This view is consistent with research published in Long Range Planning on strategy implementation, which conceptualizes implementation through practices including structure and process matching, resource matching, monitoring, framing and negotiating.

The result is a more dynamic understanding of execution: strategy provides direction, while implementation generates information that can inform subsequent strategic decisions.

Agile strategy execution is becoming a practical discipline

Recent research is also beginning to connect agile principles directly with strategy deployment.

A 2025 study published in Management Research Review examined strategy development and deployment within an automotive company through 39 semi-structured interviews. The researchers identified challenges involving process integration, communication, information quality, strategy mentality and coordination, and proposed an agile framework for strategy development and deployment.

This is significant because agile principles have often been associated with project or product development rather than the broader process of executing organizational strategy.

The emerging research suggests that the same underlying challenge exists at the strategic level: how can organizations maintain direction while responding effectively to new information and changing conditions?

For professionals responsible for strategy and performance, that requires a combination of planning, measurement, stakeholder engagement, monitoring and change management.

Building the capability to execute strategy

The Certified Agile Strategy Execution Professional (C-ASE) from The KPI Institute is designed around this challenge.

The program introduces a proprietary framework for strategy implementation and combines best practices with practical advice, process maps and implementation tools.

Participants develop capabilities to:

• Use strategy planning tools
• Deploy KPIs to monitor strategy implementation
• Engage the right stakeholders in strategy execution
• Monitor strategy implementation
• Drive organizational change

The live-online certification involves 40 hours in total, including four hours of pre-course requirements, 20 hours of live online sessions delivered over five consecutive days, three hours for an Individual Learning Map, a one-hour certification exam and 12 hours of after-course requirements.

Participants also gain access to the international Certified Agile Strategy Professional Community and can pursue international recognition for their strategy execution skills.

The next question for strategy professionals

AI is changing what organizations can do. It is also changing the speed at which assumptions can become outdated.

The strategic challenge, therefore, is not simply adopting AI. It is developing the organizational capability to turn new information and capabilities into coordinated action—and adjust that action when circumstances change.

That is where agile strategy execution becomes relevant.

For professionals working in strategy, performance management and organizational transformation, developing this capability can help strengthen the connection between strategic objectives, initiatives, KPIs, stakeholders and organizational change.

Explore the Certified Agile Strategy Execution Professional →