AI innovation key to UK business, but obstacles threaten progress

Most UK IT leaders (91%) recognise AI is a key opportunity to transform their organisation, and while almost all of them plan to adopt it, almost all of them (88%) predict AI-generated data will soon outgrow their current datacentres and 78% are worried their infrastructure can’t keep up with AI.

Those are some of the key findings of a survey carried out for Pure Storage among 1,500 C-level executives worldwide.

Key findings of the report, titled The innovation race: reducing risk and navigating the AI frontier for future success include confirmation of AI emerging as an avenue for UK innovation, but that the need for increased infrastructure upgrades and capacity, plus rising energy costs, skills shortages and day-to-day firefighting are hampering progress.

In fact, the research also showed many consider cyber defence spending a significant impediment to innovation and that budgets spent protecting their business could be better spent elsewhere.

Among UK businesses most are already planning or are in the process of adopting AI, while 42% have developed an AI-first strategy where AI is considered for every new use case.

The biggest benefits – according to those questioned – are seen in AI’s ability to improve efficiency and automate repetitive tasks (53%). After that, its key benefits are seen as personalising customer experience (49%) and driving decision-making with the use of customer data (45%).

To this end, almost half of IT budgets and 53% of IT department time is predicted to be spent on AI efforts in the next year, but almost nine out of 10 (88%) business leaders questioned predict AI-generated data will soon outgrow their organisation’s datacentres, and 78% are worried their infrastructure can’t keep up with the infrastructure needs of AI.

But at the same time as there is pressure to invest and innovate in AI, datacentres are under immense pressure from rising energy costs and cyber threats.

The survey found a third of UK businesses see rising energy costs as a threat to their ability to innovate. Meanwhile, UK IT teams struggle to keep up with the needs of innovation, with 56% having to focus on keeping on the lights and firefighting. This was the highest rate among countries in the global report. In addition, UK companies are struggling to recruit, with, with 37% saying it’s one of the greatest risks affecting their ability to innovate.

Meanwhile, survey respondents identified cyber threats as a key concern and in particular an obstacle to innovation. So, of those questioned in the UK 49% see cyber attacks as the biggest threat to innovation, while 87% said that budget and time dedicated to preventing and dealing with cyber threats would be better spent on innovation.

“UK IT leaders fear losing the innovation race,” said Wes van den Berg, regional VP for UK & Ireland at Pure Storage. “This research aims to help them understand all the risks to their organisation beyond the obvious cyber threats, enabling them to prioritise and strike a balance between security and innovation. Addressing rising energy costs and assessing AI readiness with a hybrid infrastructure approach can significantly benefit their efforts to harness AI for future success.”