Beyond the Buzz: Where AI Is Headed Next: Reflections from Deltek Project Nation Live 2025

By: Walter Pasquarelli, an expert advisor on AI strategy, data governance, and digital transformation

Let’s be honest: AI hype is exhausting. There’s no shortage of headlines claiming that the latest model will change everything, cure disease, fix your business, and maybe even do your taxes. But beneath the noise, something more serious is unfolding. Something bigger that we should focus on

And yes—something that demands more than curiosity. It demands strategy.

At Deltek’s annual customer conference, Deltek Project Nation Live in London, I sat down again with Bret Tushaus, VP of Product at Deltek, to revisit a conversation we began a year ago: how AI is transforming the way organizations think, operate, and grow.

What Still Holds True

Bret and I began by revisiting the five foundational steps Deltek and I proposed last year for integrating AI. They’ve aged well and are still relevant today:

1. Ensure alignment with strategy - Understanding what AI is – and isn’t – must be the foundation. Demystify it across your organization to set strategic direction.
2. Start with the use case - Don’t cast a neural net across your business. Start with ‘what if’ questions to uncover meaningful, strategy-aligned use cases.
3. Reality check your capabilities - Digital maturity defines your runway. Evaluate your data and talent gaps before attempting to scale AI.
4. Pilot with precision - Pilots aren’t experiments – they’re blueprints. Use them to build momentum, surface challenges, and align with business goals.
5. Safeguard trust throughout - Trust is your license to scale. Address fears, embed ethical practices early, and make transparency a strategic asset.

In a landscape where tools evolve faster than roadmaps, these foundational steps serve as essential grounding points. Especially now, when the pressure to “do something with AI” can lead to rushed pilots or poorly aligned investments, these steps remain critical.

So, what’s next for businesses looking to succeed with AI?

What’s Changed in the Last 12 Months

In our discussion, we looked at how the generative AI space has evolved. A few developments stood out:

• Advances in intelligence: With GPT-4.5 widely deployed and GPT-5 on the horizon, generative models are becoming increasingly capable—not just producing content but supporting reasoning, synthesis, and structured decision-making.
• The rise of agents: From project management tools to digital assistants embedded in workflows, autonomous agents are moving from experimental to operational. Their scale and capability are accelerating, and with it comes a growing need for oversight and governance. Bret shared that Deltek is hyper-focused on continuing to bring agents to life within their product portfolio. Two examples are Deltek’s currently available Ask Dela digital assistant, which is a more general-purpose agent that will continue to get smarter and more capable in terms of autonomously carrying out tasks for users. Another example of a more domain-specific agent, on which Deltek is working to make a reality, is a financial period close agent that will assist the accounting team in the period close process with reconciliation tasks, subledger comparisons, and financial statement review.
• Massive infrastructure investments: AI is no longer a side project—it’s the backbone of emerging digital economies. From the $500B Stargate project to major investments by Apple and the European Union, the direction of travel is unmistakable.

The result? Generative AI is moving from novelty to necessity.

Looking Ahead: Scenarios That Matter

Of course, none of us can predict the future. But we can prepare for it—and that’s where horizon scanning comes in. Bret and I mapped the next stage for AI using two key variables: AI progress (how quickly the technology is advancing) and AI adoption (how extensively businesses are implementing it). Combine them, and you get four possible futures:

1. The Present Game – Moderate adoption and moderate progress. AI is useful, but not transformative.
2. The Early Adopter’s Dilemma – Businesses have adopted AI quickly, but the technology hasn’t quite caught up. Risk of over-promising.
3. The Missed Opportunity – AI capabilities surge ahead, but organizations lag in adoption. The risk here is falling behind.
4. The AI-Powered Enterprise – High adoption, high progress. Here, AI isn’t an add-on—it’s embedded into the business model itself.

Each scenario presents very different challenges and opportunities. The key is not trying to predict which one will come true but preparing to adapt across all four.

Tools to Guide That Preparation

To help organizations assess where they stand, I shared insights from The C-Suite’s Playbook on Gen AI Adoption—a tool I developed to help leaders evaluate their AI maturity and prioritize their next steps.

It breaks maturity down into five pillars:

• Strategy & Scope
• Infrastructure & Integration
• Compliance & Governance
• Monitoring & Evaluation
• Culture

With a structured self-assessment, it provides a map. One that helps identify where efforts should be concentrated, whether it’s developing internal capabilities, improving oversight, or rethinking the role of AI in value creation.

We even shared testimonials at the event—from companies who’ve used the playbook to reshape their AI approach. What we didn’t say (until the end) is that the video and podcast excerpts we played were completely AI-generated. The avatar, the voice, the content—fabricated.

Not to be sneaky. Just to make a point.

If you can’t tell what’s real anymore, how can your customers? Your partners? Your board?

Final Reflections

As we closed, Bret asked a fair question: is this just another hype cycle? Or is something genuinely big about to happen?

My answer was clear: What comes next is structural.

Three developments signal this shift:

• The anticipated release of GPT-5
• The increasing deployment of autonomous agents across operations
• And the rise of hyperreal synthetic media—AI-generated outputs so convincing they reshape how we think about trust, authorship, and expertise

Add to this a global environment that is moving toward deregulation rather than constraint, and the next stage of the AI revolution will not just be fast—it will be formative.

What Should Leaders Do?

There are three imperatives I’d leave you with:

• Assess your AI maturity—honestly and regularly.
• Prepare for a world of synthetic content, both in how you communicate and how you verify.
• Understand which tasks will be reshaped by AI—and plan reskilling before the disruption forces your hand.

In moments of transition, strategy matters more than speed. It’s not about chasing every new release. It’s about choosing the right foundation to build on—so that when the leap comes, you’re ready to make it.