Cisco: Many Companies See AI Need, Few Actually Ready

There is a growing gap between companies that recognize the urgency that companies feel to embrace AI compared to the number of companies that are actually prepared and engaged AI readiness.

Nearly 98% of of companies claim that the urgency to deploy AI in their products has increased since last year, according to Cisco's AI Readiness Index, which surveyed more than 8,000 organizations on how prepared they are to use the new technology internally. However, the actual number of companies that are striving to be prepared is very low. Only 13% of companies are fully ready to capture AI's potential, Cisco claims. Only 14% of companies said the same in 2023.

Cisco's Jeetu Patel

"Eventually there will be only two kinds of companies: those that are AI companies, and those that are irrelevant. AI is making us rethink power requirements, compute needs, high-performance connectivity inside and between data centers, data requirements, security and more," said Jeetu Patel, chief product officer at Cisco. "Regardless of where they are on their AI journey, organizations need to be preparing existing data centers and cloud strategies for changing requirements, and have a plan for how to adopt AI, with agility and resilience, as strategies evolve."

The pressure to succeed or express control of the technology is growing, according to many companies. Nearly 85% of respondents claimed that they only have 18 months left to start demonstrating the impact of AI on their products. More than half say they only have 12 months. That deployment also requires a prominent strategy. Cybersecurity is the top (42%) priority for AI deployment, followed by infrastructure (40%) and data analysis and management (39%). It's also believed that AI will become a much larger part of IT budgets in the next five years. Respondents estimated that 30% of IT budgets will go to AI in that period, nearly double of what it is today.

Related:Cisco Makes 'Radical Change' with Cisco 360 Partner Program

Cisco and AI Readiness

Companies do continue to report that they are struggling to provide the necessary infrastructure to keep up with these demands. 80% of respondents reported that they experienced inconsistencies or shortcomings in the pre-processing and cleaning of data for AI projects Tracking the origin of data was also mentioned, as 64% of respondents said that they believe there is room for improvement in tracking the origins of data.

Talent was also a struggle. Only 31% of respondents said that their talent was at a state of readiness that could fully leverage AI.

While Cisco's data seems to imply shortcomings in the industry around AI, new data from TD Synnex reflects some positive trends in the industry. IT organizations in North America appear to have the edge on selling AI-based products, giving them a significant advantage over the international market.

Related:Cisco, Trace3 Talk AI Readiness as AI Budgets Expand