I'm doing a run where we all have +5 initiative from Leadership and +2 from 1 piece of gear each and we all act before the AI, with 0 points invested in Wits.
The AI's initiative isn't insurmountable, countering it efficiently just isn't very intuitive.
This is in line with my estimates. One must have there level initiative + 5/7 to really be going before the NPCs in the current EA