New research from Salesforce has revealed that more than four in five (85%) IT leaders anticipate an increase in developer productivity in the next three years thanks to artificial intelligence.
The news is very welcome, with two in five (39%) reporting an increase in IT requests over the last 12 months.
However, it's not all good news, according to the company. Three in five (62%) have revealed that their company is simply not ready to adopt AI and many lack the necessary infrastructure.
Companies must prepare before adopting AI
The magnitude of the problem is critical, as an overwhelming majority (98%) of companies experience some degree of challenge during their digital transformation efforts. Four in five (80%) blame data silos for their difficulties, and almost three-quarters (72%) say the systems they use are too dependent on each other, leading to technical limitations.
In summarizing the study's findings, Salesforce highlights that integration is the main obstacle to innovation in AI. By addressing data silos and challenging existing solutions that impose technical limitations, companies can begin to explore implementing their own AI tools.
As organizations look to automation to alleviate some of the pressure that has been placed on IT teams, including skills gaps and compliance concerns, Salesforce revealed an overly cautious approach. Only one in five (22%) IT leaders report having an up-to-date strategy for guiding non-technical users through integrating applications and data sources via APIs.
According to the report's figures, preventing workers from benefiting from APIs could be costing efficiency and productivity. APIs are reported to contribute around 33% of all revenue, highlighting their enormous scale.
Param Kahlon, executive vice president and general manager of Automation and Integration at Salesforce, said: “AI is only as powerful as the data organizations can connect to it and the results they can get from it.”
Kahlon's additional comments suggest that Salesforce is reasonably optimistic about enterprise adoption of AI so far, but it's clear that enterprises could drive cost efficiency even further with the right systems and procedures in place.
