Operational Capability Trumps AI Model Performance

At the recent IBM AI Summit Korea 2026 in Seoul, Lee Soo-jung, President of IBM Korea, emphasized that the core of AI competition lies not in model performance but in operational capability.

This involves connecting AI to data, applications, infrastructure, and security systems, and scaling it across the entire organization.

Lee assessed that enterprise AI adoption is moving beyond individual productivity gains into a phase that fundamentally changes work processes, decision-making structures, and how systems interconnect.