DUBAI: As an essential technology, there is no denying that AI is playing a key role as an integral part of organizations' IT infrastructure. But the question is, are these organizations ready to adopt it?
“IT leaders and teams are aware of the significant risks of this nascent technology, compounded by the drive to build AI faster rather than smarter,” said Krishna Sai, senior vice president of technology and engineering at IT management software company SolarWinds.
“With the right internal systems in place and prioritizing security, fairness and transparency when building AI, these technologies can act as valuable advisors and colleagues to overworked teams, but this research shows that businesses should consult with IT professionals when investing in AI.”
SolarWinds released a trends report, “AI: Friend or Foe,” based on feedback from IT professionals, surveying nearly 700 technology professionals, including 297 from the EMEA region.
IT professionals are interested, with nine in 10 already using or planning to use AI, but “concerns remain around data quality, database infrastructure readiness, and above all else, security and privacy.”
Overall sentiment reflects “cautious optimism” about AI, despite the obstacles: Nearly half of IT professionals want their companies to move quickly toward implementing AI, despite costs, challenges, and concerns, but only 34 percent are “very confident that their company's databases can meet the growing needs of AI.”
Only a third said they have “a lot of confidence” in the quality of the data and training used to develop AI technology.
Safe AI adoption requires organizations to have significant policies around ethics, data privacy and compliance in place. “Ethical considerations and concerns about job loss are also significant barriers to AI adoption,” the report states, finding that nearly a third of EMEA organizations have yet to put policies in place to guide proper AI adoption.
