Software Improvement Group publishes AI Maturity Guide 2026
Software Improvement Group’s new guide offers 20 concrete steps for board members, CTOs, CISOs, and GRC leaders to close the gap between AI ambition and operational reality.
AMSTERDAM – 23 April 2026 – Software Improvement Group (SIG) has published the AI Maturity Guide 2026, a practical handbook for enterprise leadership teams that want to move beyond AI pilots and build a governed, measurable approach to AI at scale.
The guide provides 20 concrete steps for board members, CTOs, CISOs, and GRC leaders to close the gap between AI ambition and operational reality.
Back in 2024, SIG published the AI Readiness Guide, to help organizations get “AI ready.” Almost two years later, to say the situation has progressed is an understatement. AI is widespread, yet, while it’s already too late to get ready, mature, governed use that consistently creates value is still rare.
Even with 88% adopting AI in at least one business function, many leadership teams still struggle to answer:
- Where exactly are we using AI today?
- Which AI solutions are business-critical?
- Are we in control of the risks, or just hoping things don’t go wrong?
- Is any of this really moving the needle?
“This guide is written for those who lead in making AI work in practice. You might be the one pushing for faster innovation under pressure from competitors and shareholders. You might be the one accountable when things go wrong. In either case, AI maturity will not come from a single project, pilot, or purchase. It will come from a steady, deliberate shift in how you govern your software and AI as one portfolio”— Rob van der Veer, Chief AI Officer at Software Improvement Group.
What’s inside the AI Maturity guide?
The 20 steps are organized by role and responsibility:
- Steps for the board — to increase know-how, set direction, demand transparency, and make informed trade-offs between speed, risk, and value.
- Steps for GRC, risk and compliance leaders — to turn fast-moving regulation and standards into a clear, workable AI governance system.
- Steps for the CISO — to extend security and resilience thinking to AI-assisted development and AI systems in production.
- Steps for the CTO and engineering leadership — to build and run AI-enabled software in a structured, measurable way and to govern AI-assisted and agentic development.
Why it matters now
The AI Maturity Guide is the practical counterpart to SIG’s AI Boardroom Gap 2026 report. Where the Boardroom Gap describes the problem and gives leadership teams a shared language for it, this guide focuses on action.
A mature organization, as defined in the guide, can see its AI footprint, govern AI as part of the software portfolio, control risk, and measure and steer on value.
Download the AI Maturity Guide 2026 here.
About Software Improvement Group
Software Improvement Group (SIG) empowers organizations to govern the software their business runs on. Through complete portfolio analysis and tailored strategic advice, SIG helps companies improve software quality and security by focusing strategic efforts across people, process, and technology.
Sigrid®—SIG’s software governance platform—analyzes over 400 billion lines of code across more than 30,000 systems and 300+ technologies, offering evidence-based insights to help organizations prioritize and manage their most critical IT initiatives.
Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Amsterdam, SIG has offices in New York, Copenhagen, Brussels, and Frankfurt. The company complies with leading ISO/IEC standards, including 27001 and 17025, and co-developed ISO/IEC 5338—the new global standard for AI lifecycle management.
Combining expert consulting with over 25 years of industry-leading research, SIG is the global authority on software portfolio governance.
For more information, please visit Software Improvement Group‘s website or social media channels.
