Business leaders and IT decision-makers are buying into the artificial intelligence (AI) hype. A large cross-section of them intend to triple AI spending from a year ago, accounting for nearly 20% of their IT budgets, according to new IDC research commissioned by Lenovo.
The report, titled “It’s Time for AI-nomics,” is based on the opinions of more than 2,900 IT and business leaders worldwide.
Some nine out of 10 AI-adopting respondents, mostly IT professionals, said AI has met their expectations.
Still, critical questions over uncertain financial returns on AI investments and gaps in organizational readiness have dampened business decision-makers’ optimism. Nearly 40% of management remains skeptical or have reservations.
“AI is a marathon and a sprint – requiring parallel efforts to move quickly to modernize systems, while ensuring the future-proofing of tech stacks,” Ken Wong, president of Lenovo’s Solutions & Services Group, said in a statement announcing the survey’s findings. “Our research shows organizations need to simplify the design, deployment, and integration of AI solutions to demonstrate the impact of these investments. This will instill greater confidence and fuel future investments.”
Generative AI in particular is reaching a tipping point of institutional use, the study’s authors conclude. GenAI use is expected to jump to 42% over the next 12 months, compared with 11% in 2024. Fueling the spike in use, 63% of worldwide organizations prefer using hybrid infrastructure for AI workloads.
But the pursuit of a $1 trillion dollar AI market is fraught with the usual hurdles of compliance and gaps in skills. More than half of organizations do not have an AI Governance, Risk, & Compliance policy. Ethical issues and biases in AI and machine learning (ML) affecting customers was cited as the most complex or risky aspect of AI implementation.
A third of organizations said they will be developing data-management capabilities this year. Ensuring data sovereignty and compliance, and the availability of quality data were the most important factors with successful AI implementations, according to the study.
Another stumbling block, the lack of skilled expertise, dissuaded enterprises from investing in AI, putting a premium on the importance of access to partners with strong AI capabilities.
“To harness AI’s transformative power, organizations need a data-driven strategy that ensures scalability, interoperability, and tangible business outcomes,” Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, president of Lenovo’s Infrastructure Solutions Group, said in a statement. “At Lenovo, we believe a hybrid approach to AI — seamlessly integrating and enabling private and public models — is essential for delivering scalable solutions, driving measurable impact, and accelerating AI-powered business transformation.”
