Executives at large enterprises across the globe are facing unprecedented pressures around adopting generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), addressing ever-increasing data complexity, and managing a growing skills gap. This is according to a new IDC survey, sponsored by Teradata.

Pressure to implement GenAI growing

Although nearly 80% of the 900 global executives surveyed had a high or significant level of trust that GenAI could be leveraged for their company's future offerings and operations, more work is to be done, the report finds.

Overall, 86% of respondents agree more governance is needed to ensure the quality and integrity of GenAI insights, and 66% also expressed concerns around GenAI's potential for bias and disinformation.

Also in question is the growing skills gap around GenAI, with just 30% saying they are extremely prepared or ready to leverage GenAI today, and only 42% completely agreeing they will have the skills in place to implement GenAI in 6 to 12 months.

Nonetheless, the pressure to implement is mounting, with 56% confirming they are under high or significant pressure to leverage GenAI within their organisation in the next 6 to 12 months.

Moreover, while 89% of those surveyed said they understand GenAIs merits and potential, not all are convinced it will remain the darling of public opinion it is today: Surprisingly, 57% believe interest in GenAI will fade with time.

Concerns about ethics remain high

The survey also explored concerns around data privacy and ethics, particularly with ChatGPT becoming a near-overnight phenomenon.

Across the globe, companies said data ethics and the responsible use of data was paramount (92% of respondents) and 97% said they were intimately familiar with data ethics and the responsible use of data within their own organisations. Nearly 9 in 10 respondents confirmed they have a formal ethical data resource or board in place.

The survey also showed companies are becoming digitally mature, with 54% saying the information flow within their organisations is either very unconstrained or highly unconstrained and free flowing.

Overall, 49% said their companies do a better than average job and 33% said they perform at an expert level of creating value from the data available within their organisations.

IT complexity causes additional barriers

The survey also revealed the extent to which executives say their organisations have been impacted by major corporate changes over the last two years.

Those polled noted their companies have seen a new or significantly increased focus on economic challenges and geopolitical changes/supply chain disruptions/wars/inflation (47% said this is true); a growing influx in work-from-home and hybrid work (47% noted this is true); and an increased focus on environmental/social and corporate governance (53% said this is true).   

With these additional pressures in place, it may not be surprising that nearly 70% of the respondents noted data complexity in their organisation had increased, with 20% saying they have felt significantly more complexity in the last 24 months.

Overall, 85% said the complexity will remain constant or increase in the next two years and 20% remain convinced data problems will become significantly more complex.