Once AI is integrated into everyday business operations, trust in its value and deployment will vary widely across the world. According to 2025 Celonis AI Process Optimization Report, APAC business leaders are the least confident in the world when it comes to using AI effectively despite their clear belief in long-term potential.
A global survey of 1,620 business leaders, including 25% from APAC and 10% from Australia, found that only 82% of APAC leaders are confident in their ability to use AI to promote value. This is the lowest level of confidence in all regions surveyed, lagging behind the US at 92%.
Despite this trust gap, adoption of AI in the region is ongoing. 70% of APAC leaders say that AI investments provide an expected return on investment.
“The data shows that APAC is not behind the capabilities, but it's full of confidence,” said Pascal Coubard, APAC lead at Celonis. “AI has no boundaries. Companies across Australia and regions should not view geography as a disadvantage. The actual ROI of AI will come when companies apply it not only to the surface but to the operational core of their business, across processes such as payments, collections, and supply chain execution.”
Genai: High awareness, room for growth
The report highlights that 81% of global leaders already use the basic Genai model for tasks such as developer productivity, knowledge management, and customer service. 61% deploy chatbots or virtual assistants powered by Genai, followed by the highest ingestion in the US (75%), APAC (63%) and Europe (57%).
While use cases are expanding, most companies still see themselves at the beginning of their AI journey. 64% of leaders believe that AI will provide important ROI in the next 12 months, while 74% expect AI budgets to grow this year. To raise expectations, 73% of companies aim to deploy division-specific AI use cases.
Handling intelligence: Missing Link
However, confidence in the possibilities of AI is mitigated by the challenges of the underlying process. More than half (58%) of business leaders say the current state of the process could limit the ability to maximize AI, and nearly a quarter (24%) could strongly agree. Importantly, 89% believe that AI needs a deep process context (understanding how the business operates) to be deployed effectively.
“Leaders know they can't optimize things you don't understand,” Cooverd said. “They are increasingly aware that process visibility and intelligence are essential to unlocking the full value of enterprise AI.”
APAC business leaders are most interested worldwide (62%) about the lack of understanding of the process that limits AI success, compared with 60% in Europe and only 55% in the US. Meanwhile, 93% of US leaders say AI needs the highest detailed operational context in any region.
Process mining gains momentum
In response, companies are investing in tools to increase process visibility. 39% are already using process mining (a technology that enables Cellonis Process Intelligence graphs), and have an additional 52% plan over the next 12 months.
Trust in AI use cases varies by department, with process and operations leaders (76%) feeling the most confident in their AI applications, with close proximity in finance and shared services (75%), IT (73%) and supply chain (68%). However, supply chain leaders have the lowest confidence that AI will provide significant ROI over the next 12 months (61%), compared with 66% in both processes and operations.
An extremely important year
The findings suggest that 2025 is the year of AI makeup or break. Business leaders are learning to strengthen investments, improve approaches, and combine the right context with AI driven by process intelligence.
“AI is not just a high-tech upgrade, it's a new operating model,” Coubard said. “However, to maximize the ROI of AI deployments, businesses need AI with the process knowledge and business context provided by Celonis Process Intelligence.”
You can read the full report here.
