Companies are feeling the urge to get up to speed with AI - but many simply aren't ready

Companies are keen to do more with AI, but are lacking capabilities, report finds
Cisco AI Readiness Index shows barely any firms feel ready to get the maximum from AI
Lack of skills and proper infrastructure also remain a challenge for many

Many companies are desperate to use AI in their workplace, but simply don’t have the skills or talent required to do so effectively, new research has claimed.

Covering nearly eight thousand companies, the latest AI Readiness Index from Cisco has found only 13% of companies feel they are fully ready to capture the potential of AI tools.

This is even a fall from the previous year, but comes alongside a growing urgency from bosses to ensure they don’t fall behind when it comes to the advantages AI technology can bring.

AI struggles

The study found nearly all companies (98%) said there was an increased urgency to deploy AI over the past 12 months, despite readiness for the technology declining.

This readiness was not helped by the apparent shortfall in back-end technology, with networks in particular not equipped to meet the strain of AI workloads, as the study found only 21% of companies believed they had the necessary GPUs to meet current and future AI demands.

Security was also a concern, as less than a third (30%) of firms said they had the capabilities to protect data in AI models with end–to–end encryption, security audits, continuous monitoring and instant threat response.

However this is not to say that the outlook is necessarily bleak for firms looking to use AI, as budgets are set to evolve as the technology landscape changes.

The study found roughly 30% of IT budgets will be dedicated to AI, nearly double the current fuigure, and nearly half of companies say although AI implementations across top priorities have fallen short of expectations so far, nearly two-thirds (59%) believe the impact from AI investments will surpass expectations after five years.

Nearly two-thirds (66%) of boards are also reportedly highly or moderately receptive of focusing more on AI in the future, potentially signalling further support – although the study did note this was down from 82% last year.

“Eventually there will be only two kinds of companies: those that are AI companies, and those that are irrelevant. AI is making us rethink power requirements, compute needs, high-performance connectivity inside and between data centers, data requirements, security and more,” said Jeetu Patel, Chief Product Officer at Cisco.

“Regardless of where they are on their AI journey, organizations need to be preparing existing data centers and cloud strategies for changing requirements, and have a plan for how to adopt AI, with agility and resilience, as strategies evolve.”