CFOtech UK - Technology news for CFOs & financial decision-makers
Business professionals examining ai icons over digital network symbolizing ai adoption

Only 30% of firms ready for AI scale despite rising investments

Mon, 18th Aug 2025

A new global study has revealed a significant gap between artificial intelligence (AI) pilot programmes and full-scale enterprise adoption, with only 30% of organisations ready to maximise the technology's potential despite widespread experimentation.

The report, titled Practical Insights from AI Leaders and released by Kore.ai, surveyed 1,000 senior business and technology leaders from 10 countries. Its findings show 71% of companies are either actively using or piloting AI, but expanding those initiatives remains a challenge for most.

The research indicates that the appetite for further investment in AI is strong. A total of 89% of respondents plan to increase their organisation's AI investments in 2025, with three-quarters intending to allocate up to half of their IT budgets to AI initiatives next year.

Scaling barriers

Despite clear intentions to increase funding, the report identifies three central obstacles to wider AI deployment. A lack of AI talent was flagged by 44% of respondents, unpredictable costs associated with large language models (42%), and persistent concerns regarding data privacy and regulatory compliance (41%).

The survey highlights four critical investment areas AI leaders are prioritising to mitigate these barriers: hiring internal and external AI talent (66%), improving data quality (51%), strengthening solution security (40%), and upgrading IT infrastructure (37%). The report suggests that initiatives rooted in these focus areas are more likely to deliver sustainable, organisation-wide impact.

Adoption strategies

There is a growing trend for organisations to buy and customise AI solutions rather than build them entirely in-house. According to the survey, 72% of respondents prefer purchasing existing solutions due to their relative ease of deployment, regulatory compliance, quality, and integration capabilities.

The study also finds that many organisations now have technologies such as generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and conversational AI in production or initial scaling phases. Emerging areas, including multi-modal AI, retrieval augmented generation (RAG), agent orchestration, and agentic AI, are the focus of early-stage experiments and pilot projects.

"AI is no longer experimental, it's foundational," said Raj Koneru, Founder and CEO of Kore.ai. "We're seeing businesses reimagine how they operate, innovate, and grow - and AI is at the heart of this transformation. The future enterprise will have AI embedded across every function, with humans and intelligent agents working side by side. To prepare for this future, organizations must prioritize data readiness, build scalable infrastructure, implement responsible governance, and invest in empowering their workforce to thrive alongside AI."

Focus on return

Leaders surveyed by Kore.ai emphasised the importance of measurable return on investment when devising their AI strategies. Operational efficiency, output quality, employee productivity, customer satisfaction, and time-to-completion were identified as the top indicators of AI project success.

Participants listed the most significant current AI application areas within their organisations as business process orchestration (44%), encompassing automation, operations, compliance and risk management; workforce productivity (31%), including task automation, information discovery and employee support; and customer experience (24%), with a focus on support and self-service.

The data shows that while 71% of companies are experimenting with or utilising AI across multiple departments and use cases, the likelihood of moving from experimentation to full-scale deployment is enhanced if companies set out with an enterprise-wide strategy and clarity on which processes stand to benefit most from AI adoption.

Follow us on:
Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on X
Share on:
Share on LinkedIn Share on X