As AI continues to advance, businesses are under increasing pressure to move ahead with adoption.
But while large corporations have the funds and resources to adopt or even produce their own AI solutions, there are concerns of a growing gap for smaller businesses, which may struggle to invest heavily in the technology without clear ideas of how it can be used.
In an effort to better understand how businesses in the UK are approaching AI adoption, IT services provider ANS in partnership with YouGov surveyed over 1,000 business technology decision-makers to gauge AI readiness and adoption across sectors and organisational sizes.
The AI Readiness Report examines how far along adoption of the technology is among UK businesses, the sectors leading the charge and what barriers are preventing those yet to invest.
Levels of adoption
Looking at the current state of play when it comes to adoption of AI, 59% of IT leaders surveyed said their company was at some stage of AI integration. For most of them, integration was at the earliest stages.
Just 10% described AI as a core part of the business’s operations, 8% had begun pilot projects and a mere 6% had started assigning headcount to AI roles.
Opinions are split when it comes to believing in AI as a significant tool for their wider strategies. Larger businesses are reportedly more confident about the future role of AI, with over half (51%) predicting that AI will be central to their operations, compared to just 23% of smaller firms.
The survey’s findings also reveal larger businesses are markedly ahead in adoption of and investment in AI.
While access to resources is clearly a contributing factor, the report also notes that regular conversations about AI among a company’s board of directors leads to higher rates of adoption in a business.
The report found that 61% of the large businesses examined said AI was regularly discussed and prioritised at the board level, compared with just 18% of small and micro businesses.
Size of businesses was not the only factor found by ANS to determine interest and adoption of AI.
Breaking it down by sector, finance and IT & Telecoms were the most avid about the technology, with 39% and 46% of firms in the respective fields found likely to engage in board-level discussions about AI.
By contrast, companies in the retail, hospitality and real estate sectors were the least likely to be actively discussing the technology.
Barriers to adoption
Adoption among UK businesses is limited, despite a widely held view that the technology can be transformative.
Over half (55%) of survey respondents said AI was likely to some degree to be integrated into all core business processes in the next decade.
The largest barrier to adoption identified across businesses of all sizes was a lack of expertise, a well-documented issue that the British government has issued several policies attempting to counteract; notably working with the private sector to train a target of 7.5 million workers in AI skills.
For SMEs, the high cost of adoption combined with uncertainty over the potential return on investment were also top concerns, while among larger corporations, concerns around regulation and data security were some of the most significant barriers identified.
“To harness AI effectively, businesses must move beyond hype and take a strategic, measured approach. It’s not just financial investment they need to consider,” said Kyle Hill, chief technology officer at ANS.
“They need to ensure they have the right technical foundations in place, such as secure, scalable data infrastructure, as well as responsible-use training.”
Barriers to adoption can also be psychological in nature according to Dr Sandi Mann, lecturer in Psychology at the University of Central Lancashire.
“Fear of job loss, reduced satisfaction, less human interaction and redundancies may all be drivers that hinder leaders and employees to adopt AI,” she said.
“For those that have these concerns, it may mean they have too narrow a focus on the threats of AI, rather than the opportunities.”
Generational divide
As with many previous evolutions of technology in business, there is an expectation that AI adoption will be most common among younger generations, defined in this report as those under 30.
When asked how much more or less likely younger employees were to use AI tools compared to older employees, the results were clear, 74% of respondents said they were somewhat, or much more likely.
A generation of AI-native workers presents an interesting prospect to businesses, which may be able to enjoy less extensive training requirements and higher productivity starters.
The future of AI adoption
It is important to note that, despite AI being in the zeitgeist for several years, the level of transformation expected by the technology’s most passionate advocates will take more time to materialise.
Despite this, the signs of progression are there and while the pace may be slower than some expected, there remains a significant appetite among businesses.
“UK businesses are making progress, with many moving past the initial wave of excitement and recognising the complexity of responsible AI adoption,” said Hill.
“True readiness will come with time, capability-building, and deeper integration of AI into operations. The trajectory is positive, but scalable, ethical impact still lies ahead.”
Read the full report here.
