What Decision-Makers Are Saying
Across all sectors, the conversation surrounding innovation is evolving rapidly. By 2025, innovation is no longer viewed as a testing ground, but as a business imperative directly linked to performance.
- Executives and boards of directors no longer ask themselves whether to invest in innovation, but rather how to turn R&D into measurable value and a sustainable competitive advantage.
- AI, digital transformation, and sustainable innovation are now considered the main drivers of growth, despite tighter budgets and an uncertain economic climate.
- Finance departments emphasize that technological and organizational innovation (process automation, upskilling) has become central to resilience and performance. A recent PwC analysis shows, for example, that the majority of financial institutions expect technology to continue to enhance efficiency and agility starting in 2026, with AI already widely integrated into R&D and operations.
The overarching message is clear: Innovation must be driven by impact, not pursued as an end in itself.
The Reality: Constraints, Emerging Dynamics, and What Actually Works
Behind this consensus-driven rhetoric, innovation continues to face very real constraints. However, the data and observed practices reveal clear patterns.
Budgets Under Pressure, but Sustainable
- The 2025 International Innovation Barometer indicates that 94% of companies have a dedicated budget for innovation, and that 73% plan to increase it in the coming year. Nearly half already allocate a significant portion of these investments to AI R&D.
- By 2026, resilience and efficiency will take precedence over pure growth as drivers of innovation strategies. The 2026 International Innovation Barometer shows that 44% of companies now prioritize operational stability over expansion.
AI has moved from experimentation to the norm - More than 80% of organizations use AI in R&D or in their operations, well beyond the testing phases. AI is establishing itself as a cornerstone of innovation, not just a peripheral technology.
- Academic research confirms that AI (including generative and agent-based models) is profoundly transforming the way R&D is conducted, by increasing efficiency and bridging the gap between human expertise and automated hypothesis generation.
Open Innovation Is Becoming Strategic
- Innovation ecosystems (startups, research institutions, and government agencies) are now essential for expanding innovation pipelines and sharing risks.
- The OECD’s Science, Technology, and Innovation Outlook 2025 highlights that business R&D accounts for more than 73% of total R&D in OECD countries, confirming not only the central role of the private sector but also the need for multi-stakeholder collaboration.
The talent shortage remains a major obstacle - Despite technological advances, companies are struggling to bring together and retain the critical combinations of business, engineering, and data skills needed for truly impactful innovation.
- This tension is prompting many organizations to rethink their operational and talent management models in order to support innovation on a large scale.
Ideas That Make an Impact: What Really Makes Innovation Scalable
Across all sectors, one thing is clear: innovation creates value only when it is designed to scale.
Today, the most advanced organizations are converging on a set of common principles:
- Engineering integrated into R&D, no longer viewed as a mere downstream execution function, but as a key capability that determines feasibility, speed, and impact.
- AI-enhanced R&D workflows, where automation accelerates experimentation, shortens development cycles, and supports decision-making—without replacing human expertise.
- Platform-driven innovation, featuring shared environments, reusable components, and standardized pipelines, making experimentation repeatable and manageable.
- Operational innovation governance, based on clear metrics, structured portfolio management, and cross-functional coordination, to directly link R&D activities to business results.
- Ecosystem-based innovation models that combine internal capabilities, startups, academic research, and public programs to broaden innovation pipelines while managing risks.
This trend reflects the growing maturity of innovation practices: the shift from isolated initiatives to industrialized, measurable, and results-oriented R&D systems.
What Will Shape R&D by 2027
Looking beyond 2025, several driving forces are shaping the path from innovation to impact.
AI as the Backbone of Innovation
- Generative and agent-based AI will evolve from a support role to one of fully orchestrating R&D workflows, enabling systematic exploration and more efficient hypothesis testing.
- Technical governance (bias, explainability, traceability) will become essential to maintaining trust and meeting regulatory requirements.
Sustainable innovation as a strategic priority - Companies will increasingly link their innovation metrics to sustainability goals, driven by public policies and regional strategies promoting clean and low-carbon technologies.
The Maturity of Innovation Governance and Metrics - Organizations will adopt measurable innovation KPIs that go beyond patents and publications: time-to-value, impact per experiment, and a balanced portfolio between exploratory and exploitative R&D.
Ecosystems and Geopolitical Challenges - Collaboration strategies will evolve in response to geopolitical dynamics, with a growing emphasis on sovereign technology ecosystems and securing value chains.
By 2027, high-performing organizations will be those capable of balancing exploration and execution, reducing time to impact, and incorporating engineering rigor at every stage.
