Are IT Leaders Ready to Adopt AI?
Not really! That is if one were to go by what respondents had to say in response to a survey conducted by AMD
Artificial intelligence (AI) might be making waves across publications but when it comes to its adoption at an enterprise level, IT leaders appear to have second thoughts. Not because they aren’t aware of the benefits in terms of heightened productivity, efficiency and security, but due to the fact that their companies are unprepared.
This was brought out in a new research commissioned by AMD, which surveyed more than 2,500 global IT leaders. Of these, 46% respondents said their enterprise wasn’t ready to implement AI across the systems, while another 44% committed to prioritizing AI over the next one to five years.
Challenges galore on AI adoption
Only about one-fifth of those surveyed committed to prioritizing AI within the next twelve months, according to the survey. However, most IT leaders were more than optimistic about the impact of AI in transforming their businesses and were also open to making fresh investments towards achieving its adoption.
Despite some hesitations around security and a perception that training the workforce would be burdensome, it became clear that organizations that have already implemented AI solutions are seeing a positive impact and organizations that delay risk being left behind. Of the organizations prioritizing AI deployments, 90% report already seeing increased workplace efficiency.
“There is a benefit to being an early AI adopter,” said Matthew Unangst, senior director, commercial client and workstation, AMD. “IT leaders are seeing the benefits of AI-enabled solutions, but their enterprises need to outline a more focused plan for implementation or risk falling behind. Open software ecosystems, with high-performance hardware, are essential, and AMD believes in a multi-faceted approach of leveraging AI IP across our full portfolio of products to the benefit of our partners and customers.”
There are roadblocks but these are surmountable
The report (download the full report), however, identified several other roadblocks that prevent a broader enterprise-level adoption of AI. These include compliance concerns and requirements for additional infrastructure. Industry experts said these concerns are valid though IT leaders need to shift from a model of intent to one of action where they start by investing in the right set of AI tools and partners for the transformation.
Industry experts also noted that even the companies that intend to take up AI within the next twelve months, the investments have to begin right away in enabling systems and technologies that also includes the right infrastructure to ensure AI workloads run seamlessly. For companies with smaller staff strength, the ability to prioritize AI would yield results within six months as compared to larger enterprises where it might take longer.
Given that more than 68% of the leaders from the US, UK, Germany, France and Japan accepted that AI would help them create functional models and run them efficiently, one of the major obstacles is taken care of. As many as 67% of the respondents also felt that AI would enhance employee efficiency.
As for those who are already prioritizing AI, there are already instances such as the reports of Microsoft developing its AI assistant Copilot which proves that enterprises are also on the ball. In fact, several companies are working on creating such innovative measures that could assist enterprises shift over to an AI-led work model, the experts argued.
