Atos Capital Markets Day 2025: Rebuilding with Purpose in an AI-First Era

At its Capital Markets Day on May 14, 2025, Atos unveiled a bold transformation strategy, signaling a decisive move to turn the page after years of turbulence. The France-based technology firm, which has long been known for its expertise in regulated industries and infrastructure, presented a multi-year plan to become a leaner, more focused, AI-powered global player.

From Underperformance to Opportunity

The context behind this strategic reset is critical. Atos has underperformed its industry peers for several years. While the global IT services market experienced modest growth of 3–5% annually between 2022 and 2025 based on PAC estimates, Atos saw a 2.5% contraction during that period. The company’s decline can be attributed to a complex organizational structure, a lack of presence in high-growth segments like AI and cloud-native development, and leadership and financial instability.

Despite this, Atos maintains significant strengths, including extensive vertical expertise in healthcare, defense, and financial services. The company also has a loyal client base, with 84% of its top 200 customers having been with Atos for over a decade. Additionally, Atos is regarded as a trusted digital partner in Europe. The 2025 briefing represents an effort to operationalize those advantages with modern delivery models and a more explicit strategic focus.

Strategic Pillars: The “SOTA” Framework

At the core of Atos’s reinvention is the SOTA framework, which encapsulates four strategic priorities:

• Simplify: Streamline branding, reduce country footprint, collapse governance layers, and rationalize service offerings.
• Orchestrate: Redesign the operating model around service-centric business lines across the value chain, accountable and simplified geographies, industry experts, clear ownership, and accountability
• Trim: Cut costs by exiting low-margin contracts, automating back-office processes, and increasing productivity through offshore delivery.
• AI-Enable: Make artificial intelligence a native capability for clients and across Atos’s operations.

This is not a theoretical exercise. Atos plans to reduce general and administrative (G&A) costs to 5% of revenue by 2028, cut headcount by ~1,000 in non-core areas, achieve 85% billability, and automate large swaths of internal workflows.

Technology & Innovation: From Legacy to Leadership

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is a flagship segment within Atos’s portfolio, generating over €1 billion in 2025 revenue. Atos positions itself as a leader in sovereign cyber, offering both embedded security within services and standalone tools such as post-quantum encryption and GenAI-powered threat detection. It has yielded tangible results, including the successful procurement of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, characterized by the absence of significant incidents among 55 billion cybersecurity events.

AI and Data Platforms

Atos’s vision of “AI everywhere” is not mere marketing rhetoric. The company is investing significantly in AI-certified talent, intending to achieve 100% certification by 2026. These efforts include the development of industry-specific AI solutions and the integration of agentic AI tools into both client-facing platforms and internal operations. Use cases include:

• Real-time analytics platforms for rail efficiency (Talgo)
• Sentiment analysis across global brands (Estée Lauder)
• AI-powered identity management (NTT Comware)

A dedicated Data & AI business unit will scale from 2,000 to 10,000 employees by 2028, reflecting the centrality of this pillar.

End-to-End Delivery Model

Atos emphasizes its ability to deliver across the entire digital transformation lifecycle, from consulting to build, integration, and ongoing operation. The focus is on AI-enabled platforms for various industries, with standardized yet adaptable modules combining infrastructure, cloud, data, applications, and cybersecurity.

Operational Realignment: A Leaner, Focused Enterprise

The strategy entails streamlining unprofitable or non-core operations. Atos will exit certain international markets, divest Advanced Computing, and discontinue contracts with project margins below 5%. This strategic decision will reduce the revenue base from €9.6 billion in 2024 to €7.5 billion (pro forma for 2025), positioning Atos for profitable, sustainable growth.

Key operating targets include:

• €9–10B in revenue by 2028, with contribution from potential acquisitions, growing organically at 5–7% CAGR
• Positive  cash generation in  2026, strong growth thereafter
• No dividend or share buybacks until 2028, capital will instead be used for deleveraging and selective M&A

Shortcomings: A Realistic Appraisal

While the plan is compelling on paper, several challenges and risks remain:

1. Execution Complexity

Restructuring a global enterprise with 74,000 employees across 68 countries is significant. Simplifying operations, offshoring more delivery, embedding AI, and changing sales behavior, all at once, will stretch leadership capacity.

2. Cultural Transformation

Atos needs to implement a performance-driven, even more customer-obsessed, and further develop an AI-fluent culture. This transformation isn’t just a technical change; it’s a human one. Legacy mindsets and fragmented internal processes may impede progress toward change.

3. Delayed Growth Momentum

Revenue growth is not expected to increase significantly until 2026. Investors and clients should be advised that 2025 has been designated a “reset year,” so there will be a need for patience from all parties involved. In a dynamic industry, this can be a risky strategy, but with a strong financial structure post financial restructuring, this secures time to reset the transformation plan already in motion with dedicated governance, tracking, and management attention.

4. Market Confidence

Given past disappointments, external stakeholders may view Atos’s roadmap with skepticism. The firm must demonstrate its capabilities quarterly, particularly given its ambitious targets of signing 5–8 large deals annually or achieving 60 %+ offshore delivery by 2028.

What This Means for End Users

For CIOs, CTOs, and digital transformation leaders across industries, Atos’s new direction opens up several opportunities:

Key Benefits

• Verticalized Solutions: Atos is aligning its tech stacks to address specific industry pain points, such as regulatory compliance in finance, patient care in healthcare, and sovereign data in government.
• AI Augmentation: Clients can access GenAI-powered platforms for employee productivity, threat detection, and data management without building in-house capabilities.
• Security First: Atos’s “security by design” approach, integrated across all services, provides a robust foundation for mission-critical workloads.
• Sustainable IT: Carbon dashboards, green infrastructure, and responsible AI tools help customers align with ESG goals.

Next Steps for Clients

• Review Current Contracts: Atos is exiting low-margin deals, so clients should proactively engage to understand if their relationship is affected and renegotiate terms if needed.
• Explore New Offerings: Evaluate AI-enabled platforms and sovereign cloud solutions that Atos is now bundling, leverage Atos’ end-to-end portfolio to explore increased collaboration opportunities (based on existing trust and strong relationships).
• Collaborate Early on Co-Innovation: Atos is pushing co-creation with clients through its innovation labs, a valuable route to custom solutions.
• Press for Accountability: With simplified governance and empowered Client Executive Partners (CEPs), clients should expect tighter execution and more precise ROI metrics.

Conclusion: Realignment With Realism

Atos’s 2025 Capital Markets Day represented more than a mere rebranding. It presented a roadmap for the future, grounded in a thorough self-assessment and ambitious transformation. By leveraging its core competencies, expanding high-growth services, and integrating AI as a universal enabler, Atos aims to enhance its competitiveness in the global market.

Success is not guaranteed. For the first time in years, Atos has a coherent narrative that combines cost discipline, technological leadership, and a revitalized purpose. This initiative has the potential to open a new chapter for clients, partners, and stakeholders alike.