Dive Brief:
- Organizations grapple with data security obstacles on the path to AI adoption, according to OpenText. The Ponemon Institute surveyed nearly 1,900 CIOs, CISO and other IT leaders for a report published last week by the cloud and software vendor.
- Almost three-quarters of respondents said reducing information complexity is the key to moving forward with AI plans. Emerging cyberthreats, the proliferation of IoT devices and a rapid growth in unstructured enterprise data were the main contributors to data woes, the report found.
- Enterprises are bolstering leadership structures in an effort to cut through the complexity, according to the report. Three in 5 respondents favored the appointment of one person to oversee data strategy. Half of organizations surveyed had either hired or were planning to hire a chief AI or digital officer to fill the leadership void.
Dive Insight:
The race to deploy generative AI capabilities slowed to a crawl for many organizations as they dug into dispersed and disordered data estates. While vendors pushed forward with investments in the technology, enterprises pumped the brakes to navigate security risks, wasted spend and tech talent scarcity.
Enterprise data wasn’t up to the challenge, Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst John-David Lovelock told CIO Dive in March. The firm expects a surge in vendor investments to drive a 76% spike in generative AI spending this year.
The AI pilot phase exposed a major gap between enterprise ambitions and data readiness, according to Pluralsight Chief Product and Technology Officer Chris McClellen. More than half of organizations lacked the data maturity to handle AI’s technical and operational demands, the IT workforce training company found in a March report.
Nearly half a year later, not much has changed.
More than half of respondents to the Ponemon Institute survey said AI remained a high priority for their organization compared to other IT initiatives. However, nearly one-third of tech and IT security leaders flagged AI-related budget constraints.
“AI is mission-critical, but most organizations aren’t ready to support it,” Shannon Bell, chief digital officer at OpenText, said in a release accompanying the report. “Without trusted, well-governed information, AI can’t deliver on its promise.”
AI technologies are a double-edged sword for cyber and risk-management leaders.
More than half of organizations are struggling to reduce AI security and legal risks, the Ponemon Institute found. Part of the problem is a lack of alignment between enterprise AI strategies and the IT and security functions, according to over one-quarter of respondents.
Nevertheless, half of respondents reported using AI as part of their security strategy and 39% said generative AI has shown particular promise in areas supporting security operations, including alert analysis.
Banking is one industry in which generative AI is improving anomaly detection, according to a KPMG survey of 200 executives published in April. One-third of banks were piloting generative AI-powered fraud-detection use cases, the IT services and consulting firm found.
