And 84% of large enterprise CIOs believe AI will have an impact so significant for your business like the arrival of the internet. Nevertheless, only 11% claim to have fully implemented the technologyfor different organizational and technical reasons. The main ones, security and data infrastructure, and believe they need to be addressed first. This has been reflected in a Salesforce survey of 150 CIOs of large companies of 1,000 or more employees.
Additionally, 61% of CIOs surveyed say they feel pressure to be experts in AI, and to acquire more knowledge about the technology than they have. They also point out that their source of information about her is their peers in other companies.
CIOs are aware that AI is going to change many things, but they are cautious about its adoption. So much so that 67% are taking a more cautious approach to it than to other technologies. Meanwhile, IT teams are focusing on data initiatives before addressing AI.
CIOs, on average, are investing 20% of their budgets in data infrastructure, as well as in its management, compared to the 5% they will invest in AI. Threats to privacy or security, as well as the lack of reliable data ranges, are the main fears of these managers in relation to Artificial Intelligence.
On the other hand, 66% of CIOs believe they will see a return on the investment they make in AI, but another 68% believe that their companies’ shareholders have unreasonable expectations about when that ROI will arrive. Additionally, CIOs see a disparity between departments when it comes to AI. While areas such as customer service have the most use cases related to this technology, they may be perceived as the least prepared for it.
AI implementation lags behind shareholder expectations
As business shareholders and stakeholders see opportunities for AI to improve efficiency, its use is rapidly increasing. 77% of CIOs, in fact, say they have management input into the value of good or excellent AI.
A notable percentage of those responsible for areas of companies such as sales, marketing, services and e-commerce believe that they have fully implemented this technology in their business flows. But there are indications that this adoption has not gone through an authorization process, leading to notable security risks, with workers sending sensitive data over insecure large language models.
On the other hand, there are CIOs, of whom only 11%, as we have mentioned, indicate that they have fully implemented AI. That’s between 18% and 38% less than its peers in other lines of business. This slow pace of AI adoption strategies in all areas of the company may be due to the focus that CIOs must put first on the preparations to do so satisfactorily.
Regarding your security concerns, you can address them by choosing providers with a robust security infrastructure, and protections that keep ethics and credibility in mind. In this way they will ensure that the data that feeds the AI is recent, of quality and accessible; something that is a particularly complex challenge that many participants in the survey have highlighted.
Recognizing that they must get their data in order before they can fully embrace AI, CIOs are spending, on average, Four times more budget today for data-related initiatives. However, these managers are unsure how much to allocate to AI in its early days, and only 47% believe they have allocated the right amount of their budget to AI-related initiatives.
Difficulties in adopting technology
Furthermore, many of them are finding difficulties in defining where and how they should show AI in all of its companies. Above all because of its novelty and the lack of understanding about it in the different departments. And even if its use cases are more appropriate for certain business areas, the departments it would affect may not be the most receptive to it. Likewise, there may be other areas more inclined to use it, but they may be the least prepared in terms of training to be able to do so.
Some CIOs are finding that this disparity between business value of AI, enthusiasm for using it, and readiness requires a sharper focus across the enterprise. Because of this, some are finding that it is more effective to launch pilot projects than to showcase the power of AI, to achieve broader implementation. Thus, 75% of those surveyed have indicated that their organizations are in an experimental stage of AI adoption.
As we have mentioned, CIOs mostly have a knowledge deficit about Artificial Intelligence. More than three in five also believe that shareholders’ expectations of their AI expertise are unrealistic, and only 9% believe their colleagues are more knowledgeable about the technology than they are.
To improve their experience, they are turning to familiar sources of information, such as analyst companies, technology providers and specialized technology media. On the other hand, they are more likely to trust their colleagues in other companies in this regard than other managers at their level.
