Australian companies invest in AI but face data & readiness gaps

Research from Riverbed has highlighted a gap between significant investment in artificial intelligence (AI) by Australian organisations and the number of projects reaching full deployment.

According to the Riverbed Global Survey on the Future of IT Operations in the AI Era, while 89% of Australian organisations reported that their return on investment (ROI) for AIOps has met or exceeded expectations, just 11% of AI projects have achieved full enterprise-wide deployment.

Barriers to implementation

The survey, which polled 1,200 business decision-makers, IT leaders, and technical specialists from seven countries, revealed that organisations face considerable challenges rolling out AI initiatives. Persistent issues with data quality, a disconnect between leadership and technical teams, and a lack of visibility into system performance were named as the chief barriers to AI adoption across Australian enterprises.

"Companies are investing heavily in AI for IT because they understand the potential it has to transform operations in today's working world. However, our research shows that enterprises face several significant challenges as they attempt to move from the early stages of implementation to practical AI solutions that deliver a strong return on investment. Across the globe, Riverbed is helping organisations to improve user experiences and IT operations with safe, secure, and accurate AI. We're focusing on what our customers need: full support for AIOps; a solution to the data gap with observability across all of IT; and fast, agile, secure AI data acceleration."

The survey identified three key gaps for Australian organisations: readiness, data quality, and realistic expectations. Only 36% of organisations regarded themselves as ready to operationalise AI, a figure that has declined slightly from last year. While 88% acknowledged the importance of data quality for AI, just 46% expressed full confidence in the accuracy and completeness of their data.

Self-assessment of data readiness was also muted, with 33% rating their data as excellent for relevance and suitability, 36% for consistency and standardisation, and 35% for security and protection.

Consolidation and observability

Organisations are undertaking several strategies to address these hurdles. The report found that 98% of Australian businesses are consolidating their IT operations tools and vendors, and 94% believe that a unified platform would facilitate easier identification and resolution of operational issues. Productivity improvement was cited as an even greater motivation than cost reduction for this move.

Another notable trend is the adoption of OpenTelemetry (OTel), an open-source observability framework. The survey found 89% of Australian organisations have started implementing OTel, with 36% completing full implementation and 53% making progress. Nearly all respondents (96%) stated that standardising data across applications and infrastructure is central to their observability strategy.

Furthermore, 95% of companies see OpenTelemetry as a foundation for projects such as AI-driven automation. Within two years, 62% expect the framework will be widely adopted. Already, 35% report OpenTelemetry is mandated across their organisation, and over half (52%) believe its main value is in strengthening security posture.

Unified communications and performance

Unified communications (UC) tools were shown to be central to operations, with Australian employees spending 41% of their work week using them. However, 48% of organisations experienced issues in areas such as video calls, messaging, and collaborative workspaces. UC-related issues were found to be a significant source of helpdesk tickets, each taking an average of 44 minutes to resolve and with one in five taking over an hour.

Business leaders expressed greater confidence in AI implementation than technical specialists, highlighting a need for better alignment within organisations. The report notes that 68% of local organisations consider UC tools essential for effective operation, while survey data suggest UC issues may currently be the main source of support requests.

Data strategies for AI

The movement and placement of AI data are central to strategies for many Australian enterprises. The survey indicated that businesses store 37% of their AI data in the public cloud, a figure expected to increase to 38% by 2028. At the same time, use of private cloud and on-premises data centres is predicted to decline, while AI-related data stored on edge computing environments is expected to grow from 9% to 13% by 2028. Storage in co-location facilities is also forecast to rise.

When considering distributed data environments, respondents ranked AI model proximity to data, cost, and security as their top priorities. For 78% of organisations, network performance and security were considered vital success factors for their AI strategy. Most (78%) plan to establish a defined AI data repository strategy by 2028.

Outlook and survey context

Despite challenges, optimism remains high. Almost one third of survey respondents believe they are fully prepared to implement their AI strategies today, and 83% expect to reach full implementation within three years. The report illustrates that investment alone is not sufficient and that Australian organisations will need to address readiness, data integrity, and expectation gaps to realise the benefits of AI in IT operations.