News

Most Enterprises Using AI, But Few Ready to Scale, Survey Finds

• By John K. Waters
• 07/31/2025

A new global survey released Tuesday by enterprise AI provider Kore.ai reveals a growing divide between the widespread use of artificial intelligence in business and organizations' readiness to scale those technologies across the enterprise.

According to the report, Practical Insights from AI Leaders, 71% of businesses worldwide are either piloting or already using AI in some form. Yet only 30% say they are equipped to scale those efforts and unlock their full potential.

The report, based on a survey of 1,000 senior business and IT leaders across 10 countries, highlights increasing investment in AI despite mounting challenges. Eighty-nine percent of respondents said they plan to boost AI spending in 2025, with three in four companies expecting to dedicate up to half of their IT budgets to AI-related projects.

Key Barriers to Scaling
The study identified three primary barriers to enterprise-wide AI adoption:

• A shortage of skilled AI talent (44%)
• Unpredictable costs associated with large language models (42%)
• Ongoing concerns around data privacy and compliance (41%)

To overcome these obstacles, companies are focusing on core investment areas. Two-thirds plan to hire internal and external AI experts, while others are prioritizing improvements in data quality (51%), security (40%), and IT infrastructure (37%).

Buy vs. Build Strategy Prevails
Rather than building custom AI models from scratch, 72% of respondents said they prefer to purchase and tailor existing AI solutions, citing faster deployment, ease of integration, and regulatory compliance as key factors.

Technologies such as generative AI, large language models, and conversational AI are already in production or scaling at many organizations. Meanwhile, interest is rising in newer technologies, including multi-modal AI, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and agentic AI.

Strategic AI Adoption
The report notes that organizations seeing the most success with AI are those that align deployments with measurable business outcomes. The top indicators of success include operational efficiency, product quality, employee productivity, customer satisfaction, and time-to-completion.

Respondents identified three main application areas for AI:

• Business process orchestration (44%) — including automation, compliance, and risk management
• Workforce productivity (31%) — task automation and employee support
• Customer experience (24%) — service and self-help tools

"AI is no longer experimental, it's foundational," Kore.ai CEO Raj Koneru said in a statement. "To prepare for the future, organizations must prioritize data readiness, scalable infrastructure, responsible governance, and empowering their workforce."