More than a hundred executives from the main Spanish companies gathered this Thursday at Game Changers Spain – Summer Edition 2026, the collective intelligence meeting organized by The Game Changers Lab to share real experiences, learnings and perspectives on the challenges that are redefining the competitiveness and business models of companies.
Why are so many digital transformation projects advancing more slowly than expected? What is preventing artificial intelligence from generating all the promised value for the business? And what capabilities do organizations need to develop to truly accelerate their progress? These were some of the questions that focused a meeting that aimed to identify the main blockages that today condition the execution of digital projects and their impact on the business, in addition to putting viable solutions on the table.
Opportunity to transform and accelerate
José Monteiro, CEO of The Game Changers Lab, opened the session by underlining: “Change is everywhere: markets, companies and relationships between buyer and seller are changing, but above all, people are changing, which are the units of meaning that shape and make up an organization.” In addition, he pointed out that “the crisis is an opportunity to transform and accelerate, it is time to decide and choose a business path.”
José Fernández Valor, vice president of the consulting and professional services unit at Kyndryl, highlighted: «AI and cutting-edge technology are allowing us to do vertical integration, it is bringing the possibility of playing with technology from the business very close. There are technology teams specialized in business products to serve customers with a deep understanding of technology.
In this context, participants also reflected on how the relationship between client and partner is evolving. For Óscar Joaquín Cristóbal, director of data intelligence at Cofares, competitive pressure and the speed of change have forced technological departments to assume a more leading role within organizations and business strategy. «The solution was to take the lead from IT, define a strategy and become the company’s reference in artificial intelligence. “We began to lead with all the risks that this entails,” he explained.
Advice and support capacity
Participants identified a shift in value in the client-partner relationship. If for years the focus was on execution capacity, the new context increasingly demands more judgment, advisory capacity and support in making business decisions. Thus, Pedro Mur Buil, partner and head of mobility, transport and logistics at NTT DATA Europe & Latam, pointed out: «The challenge of consulting is to govern all those cases of use of AI, to have judgment and know what not to do. The partners will no longer only be in charge of helping in the execution, but they will also have an important challenge in the decision and orientation of the business.”
88% of companies have already adopted AI in their businesses by 2025; However, the vast majority of organizations are still in the initial phases of experimentation. Given this situation, the main challenge lies in overcoming structural barriers in areas such as strategy or governance to successfully connect business value with data and AI.
Another of the strategic dilemmas that defined the day revolved around the evolution of the customer experience, a challenge promoted by the company Genesys led by Nicolás Grosso. The future of the digital experience involves models capable of orchestrating all contact points in an integrated way and measuring their real impact on business results.
Control AI deployment in an orderly manner
This need for technical integration is connected to the autonomy, control and responsibility of agentic AI. The main challenge is to set the control limits before their actual deployment, guaranteeing that the adoption of these technologies responds to business priorities and not only technological criteria.
The governance of agentic AI
At Game Changers Spain – Summer Edition 2026, another consensus was the need to abandon the logic of pilot accumulation and focus on initiatives capable of generating tangible and scalable value for the business. The priority now is to establish governance mechanisms capable of leading with judgment and prioritizing initiatives with real business value, managing expectations realistically and protecting teams’ time to guarantee sustainable and efficient adoption.
88% of companies have already adopted AI but the vast majority of organizations are in the experimentation phase
During the day, participants pointed out that artificial intelligence, automation and the growing digitalization of processes are accelerating a convergence that forces them to rethink leadership models, decision structures and business strategies.
The meeting concluded with a collective exercise to identify the capabilities that organizations must accelerate during the coming months. In this context, Julio César Pereira, Iberia Sales Director of DXC Technology, pointed out that “the exponential speed between technology and business is giving rise to new roles with direct access to the management committee.”
The alignment between business and technology is consolidated
Participants agreed that the main challenges to scaling AI are no longer exclusively technological, but also organizational, cultural and governance. Beyond having advanced solutions, organizations need to improve the quality and accessibility of data, encourage adoption by people, redefine processes and establish clear criteria to prioritize initiatives. The alignment between business and technology is consolidated, as well as an essential factor to move from experimentation to execution and convert the potential of AI into a real and sustainable impact for the business.
