New research from Searce identifies key trends, opportunities and challenges in AI adoption among organizations with at least $500 million in revenue
“Across industries, AI is fundamentally changing the way organizations operate and is helping them prepare for the future,” said Vrinda Khurjekar, Sr. Director, Cloud Consulting, AMER, at Searce. “Yet, while organizations recognize the potential that AI can have, many are still struggling to adopt AI in a way that is most relevant for them and achieve real business outcomes. This year’s research looks into both significant AI adoption trends but more importantly the key opportunities and priorities that need to be addressed so that AI budgets can be optimized and ROI increased.”
Key findings include:
Success for AI initiatives remains spotty yet spends continue to grow
AI initiative success rates still frequently fall short of complete success, with only 51% of respondents saying their AI initiatives have been “very successful,” and 42% saying they have been only “somewhat successful.” In addition, only 61% of respondents said that they “strongly agree” that their organizations view AI as a key priority for their organization.
Despite these ROI issues, a quarter of respondents said that their organizations would raise their investments in AI by more than 50% over 2024 levels in the years ahead, with 8% of respondents saying they would see investments increase by up to 100% or more. When asked how much of their organization’s revenue is being allocated toward AI initiatives in 2024, a quarter of respondents said their organizations were set to spend between $11-25 million, with an additional 7% saying their organizations would spend more than $25 million in revenue on their AI initiatives this year.
“Organizations often pour money into their AI initiatives without a clear vision of what they want to achieve, leading to disappointing results,” said Khurjekar. “To truly generate ROI, organizations need to move away from blindly throwing money into these initiatives and hoping for the best, and instead embrace an outcome-centric approach underpinned by proper governance, measurable frameworks and change management processes. This will allow projects to be built from the outset in an accountable way with a clear set of end benefits in mind.”
Data privacy concerns, legacy tech and talent shortage present leading limitations for businesses adopting AI
This year’s research also looked into the leading limitations that are inhibiting businesses’ AI adoption, with data privacy (45%), followed by legacy technology limitations (40%) and a lack of qualified talent (40%), the most frequently cited in the top three by respondents.
“To find AI success, businesses first need to identify and mitigate any existing limitations so that they can have the smoothest runway to adoption possible,” said Khurjekar. “The nuances within each business are different and require businesses to find partners that can help them address these concerns in the most effective way – whether that be collaborating with stakeholders to mitigate concerns around data privacy or proposing creative solutions to legacy technology issues. This allows businesses to home in on their biggest pain points, find consensus on the way to move forward, and most importantly deliver solutions that work for everyone.”
GenAI remains top-of-mind
GenAI remains a foremost initiative for organizations today with 70% of respondents saying they have at least 3 genAI use cases in production. When asked how their organizations were using genAI, customer service tools (68%), internal research tools (60%), and content generation (53%) were the use cases most cited by respondents.
Over 60% of businesses purchase AI solutions vs. build them internally
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of organizations say that they purchase solutions to help them meet their AI needs versus building them in-house. In addition, 54% said that they both purchased solutions and partnered with an external resource for services related to those solutions, while only 9% said that they purchased solutions but relied on their own internal resources for services.
