Coffee With Adham Abouzied on why most AI projects don’t pay off

Coffee With Adham Abouzied, managing director and partner at BCG X: BCG X — the tech, AI, and software-building arm of Boston Consulting Group — is accelerating its presence in Egypt as companies race to adopt AI and rethink how they operate. Leading the push is Adham Abouzied (LinkedIn), managing director and partner at BCG X and BCG globally, who returned to Egypt four years ago after helping build BCG X’s presence in Casablanca. We sat down with Abouzied to discuss Egypt’s AI potential, why most companies still struggle to create value from AI, and how organizations will need to rethink the way they do business in the AI era.

EnterpriseAM: What is BCG X and how’s it different from your other services?

Adham Abouzied: BCG global launched BCG X 10-12 years ago as a Tech and AI division built from within the consultancy — engineers, data scientists, software developers, and designers. We've recently decided to accelerate BCG X in Egypt across recruitment and client service.

BCG and BCG X usually work together. The presence of a BCG consultant ensures what BCG X builds aligns with company vision, strategy, and value creation, and avoids disconnect — one of the major risks in these investments.

EnterpriseAM: Is it just AI and digital transformation?

AA: Our model is differentiated from typical software vendors. We work on IP creation where IP does not exist — almost every project is first-of-a-kind, where software either doesn’t exist or needs are too tailored for standard solutions.

We embed in client squads, develop their teams, and grow talent. We create IP with their teams — not in-house and thrown at them. They build it with us, carry it over, and run with it. Talent capacity building is a key differentiator.

EnterpriseAM: Which sectors do you see benefiting the most from tailored AI solutions?

AA: Every sector has huge AI potential — not only to consume AI but to create bespoke applications. Financial services stand out, especially banks. Also travel, tourism, infrastructure, real estate, and industrial goods.

EnterpriseAM: Why accelerate BCG X in Cairo now?

AA: What differentiates Egypt is the chance to build new, world-class IP and breakthroughs. My KPI isn’t team size or revenue — it’s creating a success story with globally renowned IP. The combination of Egyptian companies undergoing transformation and world-class talent through BCG X is the winning formula.

EnterpriseAM: What advice do you have for companies onboarding entry-level staff in the AI era?

AA: I'll answer wearing my emerging market hat. Every company in Egypt has a growth imperative, and despite a huge supply of talent, it's insufficient to meet growth targets. In our situation, productivity improvements fuel growth — not bottom-line savings on entry-level jobs.

Every company needs double-digit growth to survive. When we build AI business cases with clients, it's to fuel the growth engine.

EnterpriseAM: How is AI adoption in emerging markets different?

AA:First is data. It exists but is fragmented across organizations, in different formats and languages. Significant effort is needed on classification — what’s highly sensitive, critical, personally identifiable, or less so — and the policy for each class. With proper security and clear policies on what's allowed on premise, on cloud, or in LLM prompts, it becomes a fast lane for adoption.

Second is potential. Emerging markets are high-potential for talent. People say talent is mobile and can work remotely — true — but working on cutting-edge projects at home is priceless. That’s a core engine for adoption.

EnterpriseAM: Do companies treat AI as a silver bullet?

AA:A recent BCG X report, The Widening AI Value Gap, found only 5% of companies say they're realizing clear bottom-line returns from AI.

The challenge is that AI requires major transformation of core processes — reimagining and reengineering them, which is difficult given legacy and organizational constraints. You're not just changing processes, but organization, staffing, incentives, KPIs, governance, and controls. The breakdown is clear: 10% algorithms and engineering, 20% data and technology architecture, and 70% organizational transformation. That’s why it’s difficult.

EnterpriseAM: We’re past the stage where leaders recognize AI’s potential. What are the key concepts business leaders today need to understand?

AA: Today your organizational chart has people and teams; tomorrow it has teams and AI agents — and they come with their burden, the same way humans do. They don’t have a salary, but you pay for tokens, API costs, and infrastructure. Every call costs money — and sometimes carbon emissions and water consumption. With hundreds of agents, it's a new science in the organization.

Then there’s quality and ethics. Can you use AI in recruiting? It’s a tough question. Policies are ramping up, but you might replicate biases that should be governed. How do you oversee that? The last bit is cyber risk. The more you deploy client-facing AI, the more your exposure surface increases.

EnterpriseAM: As AI adoption increases, will we talk about AI strategy or just strategy?

AA: It evolves — it becomes part of life, an augmentation of the organization. It becomes your strategy. This happened before with digital, more slowly. Now it’s happening on steroids. You still need governance, compliance, talent, value proposition, vision, and ethics. But planning like in the digital era — with a three-year roadmap — doesn’t work. It becomes planning under uncertainty. That’s why we tell clients: doing an AI strategy for months and producing a document has little value — by the time it’s done, things have changed.

EnterpriseAM: Is BCG X the future of consulting?

AA:BCG X is a specific type of team and offering. We don’t produce documents or slides — we produce products, code, and software. We work at the frontier of technology, serving global leaders like Amazon Web Services and Foxconn.

AI is also transforming how consultants work. Today consultants operate completely differently from one or two years ago — with major investments in agents. Human judgment and business strategy remain, but expectations on productivity, speed, and output are much higher.