It seems as if the conversation about how to use artificial intelligence across industries has gone on for several years since the explosive growth of generative AI tools.
Walk into any office space, and it’s likely that some employees are already using ChatGPT to search or to summarize meeting notes.
Whether or not organizations are ready, the workforce is steadily becoming more accustomed to using AI-powered solutions in workflows. So, how are organizations taking strategic approaches and making progress with their AI initiatives? The new CDW AI Research Report finds trends and features insights from IT leaders and decision-makers in multiple industries.
Sixty-two percent of respondents said that their organization has good ideas for AI but faces barriers to executing them.
“This is not just a business problem. This is not just a use case problem. This is a kitchen table conversation. This is impacting our kids, our families, how we move through society, our economy, currency, trade. Everything is being impacted by this technology,” says Joe Markwith, CDW’s chief strategist for Mastering Operational AI Transformation, in the report. “It’s a massive transformation beyond just the use cases and the roles that we have in our day jobs. We try to create that sense of urgency that's not just about our jobs or our businesses. It’s about where we’re going as people — in society and globally.”
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And organizations aren’t wasting any time when it comes to starting AI initiatives: More than 98% said that their organization had initiated at least one AI project, with 48% starting three to five projects.
“If you want to thrive and you want to innovate at the speed of technology, you have to consider AI, because your competitors are as well,” says Aaron McCray, field CISO for CDW, in the report. “If you don’t, you may be in the unenviable position of being so far behind the curve that it’s too late.”
Organizations still face many challenges when it comes to AI adoption, such as finding the right talent and training IT teams with the right skills; having low-quality or insufficient data; and scaling and implementation. Many organizations struggle to figure out where to start their journeys.
Change will remain a constant as AI models improve and solutions become more refined.
“The transformation we’re seeing is not a point in time. We’re not going to make this transformation and then be done,” Markwith says in the report. “It’s a process change. It's a people change. It’s a whole new way of looking at the world around us. The foreseeable future will continue to be a moving target, and we need to embrace that disruption.”
