79% of enterprises intend to license AI tools yet less than half have yet to invest in AI-specific staff training.
AvePoint’s inaugural AI and Information Management Report has uncovered that fewer than half of enterprises have an acceptable use policy and when implementing AI while 45% encountered unintended data exposure incidents.
The report created in collaboration with the Association for Intelligent Information Management (AIIM) and the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL) also found that organisations with mature information management strategies are 1.5x more likely to realise benefits from AI.
The survey of 750 enterprise highlighted the relatively immature state of AI deployments and uncovered the even before implementation, 71% of organisations had AI related privacy and security concerns.
According to Dana Simberkoff, Chief Risk, Privacy and Information Security Officer, AvePoint. “The reality is that not enough organisations have the proper policies in place today, which exposes them to risks that could be mitigated, if they better protect and govern their data and educate their employees on the safe usage of this technology.”
Organisations are ramping up investments in AI, with 83% planning to increase their AI spending and 79% investing in licensed AI such as Copilot for Microsoft 365. In addition, 60% of organisations plan to allocate at least a quarter of their technology budget to AI in the next 5 years. However, less than half of organisations (46%) offer AI-specific training, hindering their employees from safely using and optimizing this technology.
“This new study highlights the huge and largely untapped potential that AI offers the channel as enterprises struggle to get to grips with the opportunities and challenges this technological shift poses,” said Chris Shaw, UKI&SA Country Channel Manager at AvePoint (pictured).
“Our channel community of around 3500 partners is embracing this potential and we are seeing many starting to build AI practices that are intersecting with existing areas such as information lifecycle management, compliance, cyber security and other areas to deliver both the consultancy and ultimately build out new AI powered services that will make up, what we believe, will become a major revenue source over the next decade.”
