Almost 90% of Businesses Use AI, But Tech and Talent Challenges Remain

Cloudera, the only true hybrid platform for data, analytics and AI, recently announced the findings from its survey, The State of Enterprise AI and Modern Data Architecture. The report – which is based on a survey of 600 IT leaders located in the U.S., EMEA, and APAC regions – explored the challenges and barriers that exist for enterprise AI adoption across global enterprises and current applications. It also explored plans for AI adoption, the state of data infrastructure, and the benefits of hybrid data management in relation to enterprise AI adoption. The survey revealed that although a high majority of enterprises are adopting AI in some capacity (88%), many are still lacking the necessary data infrastructure and employee skills to truly benefit from it.

Moreover, specific sectors like fintech, transportation, and emotional AI in retail are witnessing notable AI advancements. 61% of Middle Eastern executives expect productivity gains exceeding 10% from AI and GenAI in 2024, showcasing the region's shift from experimental to scaled AI initiatives. This momentum is further fuelled by the region's tech-driven economy, aiming to boost employment and living standards.

"The Middle East region is rapidly moving from experimental AI initiatives to scaled applications, with significant potential to enhance productivity and drive economic growth. As AI adoption accelerates, with projections suggesting a contribution of up to $150 billion to the GCC's GDP, organisations are increasingly recognising the importance of robust data infrastructure. At Cloudera, we are dedicated to empowering businesses in the region with our hybrid platform, ensuring they can effectively leverage their data and AI capabilities to achieve strategic goals and navigate the complexities of digital transformation,” said Karim Azar, Regional Vice President of Middle East & Turkey at Cloudera.

AI has become a global phenomenon over the past few years due to its ability to supercharge business operations, enable informed decision-making, accelerate innovation, and enhance employee and customer experiences. However, not every organisation has been able to reap the benefits.

The Cloudera AI survey found that the top barriers to adopting AI were worries about the security and compliance risks that AI presents (74%), not having the proper training or talent to manage AI tools (38%), and AI tools being too expensive (26%). These findings signal that despite rapid AI adoption, many pillars of a resilient AI strategy are being neglected or forgotten.  

A key finding of the survey is that all AI efforts are ultimately tied back to trustworthy data. While 94% of respondents said that they trust their data, 55% also said they would rather get a root canal than try to access all of their company’s data. This frustration is driven by challenges, including contradictory datasets (49%), an inability to govern data across platforms (36%), and too much data (35%). These areas of frustration signal that many enterprises might be missing a modern data architecture that empowers organizational-wide access to data – wherever it may live – in a secure, accessible and trustworthy manner.

The survey revealed that the top use cases for AI included automating and streamlining IT processes, building chatbots capable of quickly and effectively supporting front-line customer needs, and leveraging analytics to foster better decision-making. The top use cases for AI included improving customer experiences (60%), increasing operational efficiency (57%), and expediting analytics (51%). 

• Improving customer experience: Companies are applying AI technology to enhance security and fraud detection (59%), automate aspects of customer support (58%), leverage predictive customer service (57%), and power chatbots (55%), all with a goal of giving customers a safer, simpler, and more intuitive experience. 
• Increasing operational efficiency: AI is being integrated into nearly every facet of business. The survey found that IT departments are not the only ones using AI; 52% of respondents reported using it for customer service, like better-informed chatbots, and 45% indicated it’s used for marketing, such as analysing call centre data to offer more targeted incentives to customers. 
• Expediting analytics: Faster, easier, and more dependable access to analytics means more informed decision-making, giving companies leveraging AI a distinct competitive advantage. Nearly 80% of respondents said it is either “completely” or “very” true that their company is using all of the data at its disposal to make smarter business decisions. This data provides mission-critical information, so access to all of an organisation's data is critical. 

“For the majority of companies, the quality of their data is not great, it’s distributed across various infrastructures and not documented in an efficient manner, and we’re seeing the fallout from that presented in the challenges identified by the survey,” said Cloudera Chief Strategy Officer, Abhas Ricky. “Managing data where it resides is the most important thing when it comes to adopting AI - being able to run models in a cost-efficient manner where that data already lives. Instead of bringing the data to the models, enterprises are starting to realize the advantages of bringing AI models to their data.”

Cloudera is the only true hybrid open data lakehouse that brings analytics and AI to business data. With 25+ exabytes of data under management, on par with the industry's hyperscales, Cloudera is uniquely positioned to help enterprises organise and manage their data efficiently and securely so they can harness the power of that data, trust its accuracy and rely on it for analysis and business decision-making.