The intelligent data infrastructure company, NetApp, has unveiled its 2024 Cloud Complexity Report, highlighting a global 'disrupt or die' era fuelled by Artificial Intelligence (AI). The report dissects the experiences of technology decision-makers worldwide in their efforts to deploy AI on a large scale, distinguishing a clear disparity between AI leaders and AI laggards.
"AI is only as good as the data that fuels it," stated Pravjit Tiwana, General Manager and Senior Vice President of Cloud Storage at NetApp. Tiwana underlined the importance of a reliable and unified data infrastructure for successful AI initiatives. Countries slower to adopt AI technologies, such as Australia and New Zealand, are prioritising optimisation of their IT environments and unifying datasets towards successful AI deployment and sustaining AI readiness. Ensuring such readiness warrants a greater opportunity for successful long-term AI deployment.
The report's findings reveal a significant divide between AI leaders and AI laggards across several areas. Against AI-lagging countries (Spain, Australia/New Zealand, Germany, Japan) where only 36% have AI projects underway or in pilot, a respective 60% of AI-leading countries (India, Singapore, UK, USA) boast active AI projects. Also, the technology industry leads with 70% of AI projects either up and running or in pilot, followed by Banking & Financial Services and Manufacturing at 55% and 50%, respectively.
The approach to AI also varies between AI leaders and AI laggards. AI leaders reap the benefits of AI, including a 50% increase in production rates, 46% automation of routine activities, and a 45% improvement in customer experience, with 67% of these companies reporting having hybrid IT environments.
Chief Marketing Officer at NetApp, Gabie Boko, echoed the significance of data readiness in the current age of Artificial Intelligence. "Data-ready enterprises that connect and unify broad structured and unstructured data sets into an intelligent data infrastructure are best positioned to win in the age of AI," Boko stated.
Regardless of whether companies are AI leaders or laggards, optimising IT environments before deploying AI is recognised as a top priority. An optimistic 42% of companies in AI-lagging countries have already adapted their IT environments for AI purposes, and significant benefits such as easier data sharing and increased visibility have been reported with the creation of a unified data infrastructure.
Despite rising IT costs and cybersecurity concerns serving as challenges in the AI era, AI progress is not expected to stagnate. "AI leaders will scale back, cut other IT operations, or reallocate costs from other parts of the business to fund AI initiatives," the report explained. 31% of global companies are already reallocating funds from other areas of their business to support AI projects, led by India, the UK, and US. In conclusion, global investment in AI is being heavily supported by the cloud, with companies projecting to escalate AI-driven cloud deployments by 19% from 2024 to 2030.