Every organization wants to move faster with AI. But beneath the Copilot deployments, ChatGPT pilots, Claude testing, automation initiatives, digital transformation programs, and years of technology investment lies a problem most leaders cannot see: Digital Debt.
Digital Debt is the hidden accumulation of outdated information, abandoned content, redundant applications, fragmented processes, sprawling permissions, inconsistent governance, unmanaged collaboration environments, and technology decisions that were once reasonable but have become increasingly expensive to maintain. It builds quietly. Employees compensate with workarounds. Leaders accept growing friction as normal. Technology teams add new capabilities on top of old complexity. Then AI arrives and exposes everything.
In Digital Debt, Microsoft 365 and AI strategist Eric Riz explains why the next phase of artificial intelligence will not be won by the organizations with the most AI tools. It will be won by the organizations with the strongest, most trusted digital foundations.
Drawing on more than two decades of real-world experience working with organizations undergoing Microsoft 365 modernization, governance transformation, cybersecurity improvement, Copilot adoption, and enterprise AI initiatives, Riz reveals how Digital Debt affects productivity, decision-making, security, compliance, employee experience, and the reliability of AI itself.
The book provides a practical framework for identifying where Digital Debt exists, understanding how it accumulates, prioritizing what matters most, and rebuilding the digital environment around clarity, ownership, lifecycle management, governance, and trust. It explores the hidden costs of collaboration and information sprawl, the human burden of fragmented digital workplaces, the governance requirements of AI agents, and the operating model enterprises will need as intelligent systems become increasingly embedded in everyday work.
Most importantly, Digital Debt offers leaders a path forward.
The goal is not to slow innovation or eliminate every imperfection. It is to create a digitally solvent organization capable of moving quickly without allowing complexity to outpace understanding.
Clean up. Build up. Future-proof.
Because AI readiness is ultimately determined by what an organization can trust, not simply by what it can deploy.
