The Wall Street Journal evaluates how 500 leading US corps stack up in 6 areas: AI readiness, innovation, talent readiness, financial fitness, resilience and agility.
AT&T ranks #375 overall with an Overall Score of 44.2, making it a clear laggard in the table. The headline surprise is that AT&T has a strong AI Rank of #33, close to Verizon’s #26 and well above many industrial and financial firms. Innovation is also not terrible at #181, which suggests the table does not see AT&T as technologically irrelevant.
The issue is that AT&T fails to convert AI readiness into broad future-readiness. It ranks #390 in Talent Readiness, #352 in Resilience, and #465 in Agility, which overwhelms the positive AI signal. The Goldman-style read is that AT&T looks like a company with technological investment capacity but legacy operating drag. The data suggests it may understand the AI transition, but the corporate system does not yet look adaptive enough to benefit fully from it.
Source:
https://www.wsj.com/rankings/best-companies-for-the-future/full-rankings-2026