AI business transformation is thought to be the future of enterprise by around 50% of the respondents to our recent survey, co-authored with Oxford Economics and SAP Signavio. Let’s explore the reasons for this 50/50 split in opinion on the value of AI.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a key consideration in business transformation. Not only is it important to transform your organization to put it in a position to leverage AI, but AI itself is also an important technology for transformation.
Yet, we recently worked with SAP Signavio and Oxford Economics to find out about 800 business executives’ experiences with transformation. Strangely, there was an almost 50/50 split between those who were excited about AI and those who are concerned about its use.
52% of executives responding to the survey believe AI will significantly alter their transformation efforts, while 48% are not yet convinced that AI will be revolutionary. AI is a controversial technology, but this split is still decisive.
Let’s explore what else the executives that Oxford Economics surveyed had to say, as well as their hopes and concerns about the use of AI. Once we do, we should be able to make clear what the truth is about AI in business transformation.
To learn more about the future of business transformation, download our new report, co-authored with Oxford Economics and SAP Signavio:
DOWNLOAD: The Estimation Game - What do business transformations really cost?
Our Survey Says...
Artificial intelligence (AI) was a key focus in the business transformation study that we commissioned Oxford Economics to conduct. We’ve already mentioned the 50/50 split on the benefits of AI, but there were other opinions on AI as well.
Ethics Is More Important Than Value
76% of respondents said their organization cared more about the safe and ethical use of AI than maximizing its value. This is obvious, but it implies that AI governance is going to be a greater priority than AI adoption in the days to come.
AI Governance Is Everybody’s Responsibility
55% of AI governance policies in use among respondents were created with feedback from multiple teams across their businesses. This shows that most organizations are taking their employees’ concerns about AI seriously.
AI Policies Are Not Well Communicated
Unfortunately, AI communication across the business is not currently two-way. Only 47% of respondents felt their AI governance policy was clearly communicated and demonstrated to their entire workforce.
Risk Assessment Is Still In Its Infancy
Only 43% of respondents said they were thoroughly assessing the risks of AI use in their business transformations. Clearly, many organizations are not aware of the risks involved in AI adoption.
AI Governance Policies Are Immature
Since there’s a lack of awareness of AI risk, there’s also a lack of proper governance. Only 35% of respondents felt their organization had a robust AI policy in place.
AI Is Not Yet Being Leveraged
Only 34% of respondents are using AI to help suggest next steps in business transformation. We believe this is connected to a lack of governance, as awareness of risk means you can proceed confidently.
The Case Against AI In Business Transformation
The risks of using artificial intelligence (AI) in business transformation are clear and abundant. The SAP LeanIX 2024 AI survey discovered a few of our respondents’ primary concerns:
- 73% of respondents are limiting their use of AI tools until they’re better understood
- 72% are concerned about the security of their data when shared with AI tools
- 59% are worried about the legal consequences of leveraging AI
- 48% think that there aren’t enough experienced users to properly and safely leverage the technology
- 33% aren’t convinced that AI produces reliable results
- 22% have ethical concerns about AI use
- 16% fear that the costs of using AI are going to spiral out of control as vendors move to the profit-seeking stage of implementation
Perhaps most worrying, barely any of our respondents were concerned about the environmental cost of AI use. Likewise, few were aware of coming regulation.
The environmental costs of our current AI setup are widely covered in the media. Forbes reports that a single ChatGPT conversation uses up a bottle of water, with the cumulative impact of that causing major concern.
Meanwhile, various governments around the world are already fast-tracking regulation to mitigate the potential societal risks of AI use, with European Union regulation already in place. Despite barely any of our respondents expressing concern about regulation, only 19% say they’re ready to comply with it.
READ: What World-First EU AI Act Means For Enterprise Architects
Of course, President Donald Trump now intends to increase investment in AI, contrary to former president Joe Biden’s intention to heavily regulate the technology, and China’s DeepSeek AI has the potential to reduce the environmental and legal risks. Still, the lack of concern among our respondents seems to suggest a lack of awareness of the issues.
Overall, it seems that executives across the market are feeling a deep uncertainty about the potential and risks of AI use. As such, it’s no wonder that they’re hesitant to move forward with AI.
The Case For AI In Business Transformation
Artificial intelligence (AI) is vitally important for business transformation. This is due to the unique capability of AI to process vast amounts of complex data.
Any journey requires the understanding of where you are, knowledge of where you’re going, and a detailed road map between the two. Business transformation, therefore, requires detailed assessment of your current IT landscape, a comprehensive model of your target state, and a detailed schedule for iterating from one to the other.
AI can examine all your data to build a model of your current IT architecture. It can then help you expand your vision into a realistic design for your architecture and use data to suggest what steps to take to progress.
Because AI is able to process vast amounts of information and make recommendations and create documentation, it can look at your IT landscape in far more detail than a human would be capable of, in far less time. It can also use algorithms and fine detail to suggest far more comprehensive visions for the future than humans can.
Given these benefits, even if you choose not to leverage AI in business transformation, your competitors will not hesitate. This means AI laggards will find their transformations take longer and their time-to-value is increased.
Agility and leveraging technology innovation is key for organizations in the modern market. Since this requires repeated business transformation, AI laggards will find themselves losing their competitive edge.
Therefore, it becomes clear that, however you choose to leverage AI, you need to do so somehow. As such, the solution is to find a way to leverage AI while mitigating the risks, and that way is AI governance.
The Future Of Business Transformation
Artificial intelligence (AI) is vital to empower business transformation and gain the agility your business needs to thrive in the modern market. Yet, there are very real risks involved in doing so.
To move forward with AI business transformation, organizations need to feel confident that they can mitigate the risks involved. Therefore, they need a way to assess and analyze AI usage across their organization and empower their project with AI technology.
That’s precisely what SAP LeanIX can offer your organization. To find out more about using SAP LeanIX for AI governance, book a demo.
To learn more about the future of business transformation, download our new report, co-authored with Oxford Economics and SAP Signavio:
