Digital transformation has long been a boardroom buzzword—shorthand for ambitious, often abstract visions of modernization. But today, digital technologies are no longer simply concepts in glossy consultancy decks and on corporate campuses; they’re also being embedded directly into factory floors, logistics hubs, and other mission-critical, frontline environments.

This evolution is playing out across sectors: Field technicians on industrial sites are diagnosing machinery remotely with help from a slew of connected devices and data feeds, hospital teams are collaborating across geographies on complex patient care via telehealth technologies, and warehouse staff are relying on connected ecosystems to streamline inventory and fulfillment far faster than manual processes would allow.

Across all these scenarios, IT fundamentals—like remote access, unified login systems, and interoperability across platforms—are being handled behind the scenes and consolidated into streamlined, user-friendly solutions. The way employees experience these tools, collectively known as the digital employee experience (DEX), can be a key component of achieving business outcomes: Deloitte finds that companies investing in frontline-focused digital tools see a 22 % boost in worker productivity, a doubling in customer satisfaction, and as much as a 25 % increase in profitability.

As digital tools become everyday fixtures in operational contexts, companies face both opportunities and hurdles—and the stakes are only rising as emerging technologies like AI become more sophisticated. The organizations best positioned for an AI-first future are crafting thoughtful strategies to ensure digital systems align with the realities of daily work—and placing people at the heart of the whole process.

IT meets OT in an AI world

Despite promising returns, many companies still face a last-mile challenge in delivering usable, effective tools to the frontline. The Deloitte study notes that less than one-quarter (just 23%) of frontline workers believe they have access to the technology they need to maximize productivity. There are several possible reasons for this disconnect, including the fact that operational digital transformation faces unique challenges compared to office-based digitization efforts.

For one, many companies are using legacy systems that don’t communicate easily across dispersed or edge environments. For example, the office IT department might use completely different software than what’s running the factory floor; a hospital’s patient records might be entirely separate from the systems monitoring medical equipment. When systems can’t talk to one another, troubleshooting issues becomes a time-consuming guessing game—one that often requires manual workarounds or clunky patches.

There’s also often a clash between tech’s typical “ship first, debug later” philosophy and the careful, safety-first approach that operational environments demand. A software glitch in a spreadsheet is annoying; a snafu in a power plant or at a chemical facility can be catastrophic.

Striking a careful balance between proactive innovation and prudent precaution will become ever more important, especially as AI usage becomes more common in high-stakes, tightly regulated environments. Companies will need to navigate a growing tension between the promise of smarter operations and the reality of implementing them safely at scale.

Humans at the heart of transformation efforts

With the buzz over AI and automation reaching fever pitch, it’s easy to overlook the single most impactful factor that makes transformation stick: the human element. The convergence of IT and OT goes hand in hand with the rise of digital employee experience. DEX encompasses everything from logging into systems and accessing applications to navigating networks and completing tasks across devices and locations. At its core, DEX is about ensuring technology empowers employees to work efficiently and without disruption—no matter where or how they work.

Companies investing in DEX technology are seeing measurable gains—from reduced help desk tickets and system downtime to harder-to-quantify benefits like higher employee satisfaction and retention. Frictionless digital workplaces, supported by real-time monitoring and automation capabilities, help organizations attend to IT issues before users experience disruptions or productivity levels dip.

There are real-world examples of seamless DEX in action: Swiss energy and infrastructure provider BKW, for instance, recently built a system that lets their IT team remotely assist employees experiencing technical difficulties across more than 140 subsidiaries. For employees, this means no more waiting for an in-person technician when their device freezes or software hiccups; IT can swoop in remotely and solve problems in minutes instead of hours.

The insurance company RLI faced a different but equally frustrating issue before switching to a centralized, remote IT support system: Technical issues like device lag or overheating were often left unreported, as employees didn’t want to disrupt their workflow or bother the IT team with seemingly minor complaints. Those small performance issues, however, could snowball over time, sometimes causing devices to fail completely. To get ahead of this phenomenon, RLI installed monitoring software to observe device performance in real time and catch issues proactively. Now, when a laptop gets too hot or starts slowing down, IT can address it right away—often before the employee even knows there’s a problem.

Ultimately, the organizations making the biggest strides in DEX recognize that digital transformation is as much about experience as it is about infrastructure. When digital tools feel like helpful extensions of workers’ expertise—rather than obstacles standing in the way of their workday—companies are in a better position to realize the full benefits of their investments.

Smart systems and smarter safeguards

Of course, as operational systems become more interconnected, security vulnerabilities multiply in turn. Consider this hypothetical: In a busy manufacturing plant, a piece of machinery suddenly breaks down. Instead of waiting hours for a technician to arrive on-site, a local operator deploys a mobile augmented reality device that projects step-by-step diagnostic instructions onto the machine. Following guidance from a remote specialist, the operator fixes the equipment and has production back on track in mere minutes.

This snappy and streamlined approach to diagnostics is undeniably efficient, but it opens up the factory floor to multiple external touchpoints: live video feeds streaming to remote experts, cloud databases containing sensitive repair procedures, and direct access to the machine’s diagnostic systems. Suddenly, a manufacturing plant that used to be an island is now part of an interconnected network.

Smart companies are getting practical about the challenges associated with this expanding threat surface. For instance, BKW has taken a structured approach to permissions: Subsidiary IT teams can only access their own company’s devices, outside contractors get temporary access for specific tasks, and employees can reach certain high-powered workstations when they need them.

Bühler, a global industrial equipment manufacturer, also uses centrally managed access controls to govern who can connect to which platforms, as well as when and under what conditions. By enforcing consistent policies from its headquarters, the company ensures all remote support activities are fully monitored and aligned with strict cybersecurity protocols, including compliance with ISO 27001 standards. The system allows Bühler’s extensive global technician network to provide real-time assistance without compromising system integrity.

The power of practical innovation

How do you help a technician troubleshoot equipment when the expert is 500 miles away? How do you catch IT problems before they shut down a production line? How do you keep operations secure without burying workers in passwords and protocols?

These are the kinds of practical questions that companies like Bühler, BKW, and RLI Insurance have focused on solving—and it’s part of why they’re succeeding where others struggle. These examples demonstrate a genuine shift in how successful companies think about technology and transformation. Instead of asking, “What’s the latest digital trend we should adopt?” they’re assessing, “What problems are our people actually trying to solve?”

The organizations pulling ahead to digitally transform frontline operations are the ones that have learned to make complex systems feel simple, intuitive, and secure to boot. Such a practical approach will only become more pressing as AI introduces new layers of complexity to operational work.

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This content was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not written by MIT Technology Review’s editorial staff.

This content was researched, designed, and written entirely by human writers, editors, analysts, and illustrators. This includes the writing of surveys and collection of data for surveys. AI tools that may have been used were limited to secondary production processes that passed thorough human review.