Research discovered while researchers by application security vendor F5 are adopting AI, with research companies facing major challenges in security, governance and scalability, with only 2% considered to be highly prepared.
In its 2025 AI Application Strategy Report, F5 revealed that 25% of applications typically use AI, but many organizations lack the robust framework they need to scale safely across operations.
F5 says it is highly AI ready and has broadly integrated technology across its app portfolio.
In contrast, low-reserve companies typically use AI in less than a quarter of their apps, in siloed or experimental settings.
Moderately prepared companies use AI in about 33% of their applications, and 70% actively use generative models.
On average, 25% of apps use AI.
F5 says 71% of organizations use AI to increase security, but only 31% deploy certain protections, including firewalls.
Data governance remains weak, with only 24% practicing continuous data labeling, increasing vulnerability to attacks. F5 focuses on the fact that hybrid cloud environments further complicate governance and expose workflows to add risk.
Most companies employ multiple AI models, combining three per organizational, averaged three, paid models, including GPT-4, with open source alternatives such as Meta Platforms' Llama, Mistral AI variants and Google's Gemma.
F5 attracted insights from 650 global IT leaders and conducted additional research on 150 AI strategists, representing an organization that generated at least $200 million in annual revenue.
