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Follow ZDNET:\u00a0Add us as a preferred source<\/a>\u00a0on Google.\u00a0<\/p>\n ZDNET’s key takeawaysNumerous studies show most businesses don’t see ROI with AI.Those that do prioritize long-term stability, Cisco says.”Pacesetters” emphasize trust and treat AI like an OS.\u00a0<\/p>\n We’re currently living through a paradoxical moment. Businesses are embracing AI, yet very few of them, it seems, are deriving much benefit from the technology. What are those select few doing right?<\/p>\n Also: I unleashed Copilot on my Microsoft and Google accounts – here’s what happened<\/a><\/p>\n This is the question telecommunications company Cisco set out to answer in its third annual “AI Ready Index,”<\/a> published Tuesday. Following a survey of more than 8,000 business leaders, all of whom are charged with overseeing their organizations’ internal AI efforts across twenty-six countries, the Index sought to identify the factors leading to success in the early days of the AI boom — and, in turn, those causing the vast majority of businesses to remain stagnant.<\/p>\n The ROI battle\u00a0<\/p>\n Many businesses have had to learn in recent years that adopting AI to automate certain organizational tasks or employees’ day-to-day workflows won’t necessarily translate to financial gain. The technology may make workers more productive in some respects, but it also presents a whole host of risks — some of them involving cybersecurity<\/a>, some of them legal<\/a>, some of them psychological<\/a>. In some cases, AI actually creates more work for supervisors<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Also: AI use is up, but organizations still aren’t seeing gains, Atlassian study finds<\/a><\/p>\n There’s now a growing pile of evidence that most businesses — almost all of them, in fact — have been struggling to achieve meaningful ROI through their internal AI efforts. Most infamously, a MIT study published in August found<\/a> that 95% of businesses’ AI initiatives have essentially gone nowhere, while a recent study from Atlassian\u00a0showed<\/a> that even more (96%) “have not seen dramatic improvements in organizational efficiency, innovation, or work quality” from AI, despite the fact that the technology is being used by more individual workers than ever.<\/p>\n The ‘Pacesetters’ difference\u00a0<\/p>\n The MIT and Atlassian studies offer some theories to explain why so few enterprises have successfully profited from their AI initiatives. Cisco does the same by highlighting a small minority of what it calls “Pacesetters” that have been using AI successfully and confidently. Pacesetters have consistently represented about 13% to 14% of the businesses that have been surveyed for each of the company’s Indexes over the past three years.<\/p>\n Cisco’s description of a Pacesetter is reminiscent of that of a sharp-eyed investor, someone who is able to forgo instant gratification in order to patiently build out the habits and technological support that will sustain long-term growth.<\/p>\n Also: Your colleagues are sick of your AI workslop<\/a><\/p>\n These comparatively successful outliers “adopt a disciplined, system-level approach that balances strategy, infrastructure, data, governance, people and culture,” Cisco wrote in its full report<\/a>. “They plan ahead, invest early, and embed AI into the core of how they operate to help them keep pace with AI’s accelerating evolution and deliver lasting value.”<\/p>\n Pacesetters treat AI as more of a new operating system for their organizations rather than merely a new device to be added to employees’ technological arsenals. It’s not a hammer — instead, it’s a new set of blueprints that will redefine the business’ digital ecosystem.\u00a0<\/p>\n That implies a level of heightened ambition, which, according to Cisco, requires a great deal of patience, attention to detail, and creativity.<\/p>\n Also: AI is making cybercriminal workflows more efficient too, OpenAI finds<\/a><\/p>\n Almost all Pacesetters (99%), for example, have developed what Cisco describes as an “AI roadmap” to guide their internal use of the technology over time, compared to just over half (58%) of all other businesses that were surveyed. Additionally, 87% of Pacesetters said they’re “highly aware of AI-specific threats” to their organizations’ cybersecurity (compared to 42% of other respondents), while 75% said they’re “fully equipped to control and secure AI agents” (compared to 32%).<\/p>\n Trust in their internal AI tools “is part of the Pacesetters’ value equation,” Cisco wrote in a press release<\/a> published Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n Want more stories about AI?\u00a0Sign up for AI Leaderboard<\/a>, our weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n On that note, a study published in September by data analytics company Statistical Analysis System (SAS) and the International Data Corporation (IDC) found<\/a> that one of the key factors inhibiting companies from achieving ROI from their internal AI initiatives was a lack of trust in the technology itself.<\/p>\n Implementing AI successfully also requires a willingness to focus on automating some of the more mundane aspects of running a business. Investing in an AI-powered customer service tool might be less headline-grabbing than, say, launching a full-blown video ad generated by Sora<\/a>, but it will probably deliver more value over the long run.<\/p>\n Also: Even the best AI agents are thwarted by this protocol – what can be done<\/a><\/p>\n That conclusion is supported by recent data from market research firm Forrester, which indicates<\/a> that the most fruitful business applications of AI will be those that operate behind the scenes. A new list from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)\u00a0highlighted the top 50 AI startups<\/a> that enterprise customers are currently investing in, many of which are relatively unknown companies offering niche automation services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"lerbank\/iStock\/Getty Images Plus via Getty Images Follow ZDNET:\u00a0Add us as a preferred source\u00a0on Google.\u00a0 ZDNET’s key takeawaysNumerous studies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":["post-75864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}